MEMOIRS 

OF THE 

MOSTEMINENT 

AMERICAN MECHANICS: 

ALSO, 

LIVES OF DISTINGUISHED EUROPEAN MECHANICS; 

TOGETHER WITH A COLLECTION OF 

ANECDOTES, DESCRIPTIONS, &c. &c. 

\ 

■RELATING TO THE MECHANIC ARTS. 
ILLUSTRATED BY FIFTV ENGRAVINGS 



BY HENRY HOWE. 



"Tiie due cultivation of practical manual arts in a nation, has. a greater tendency to 
polisli and humanize mankind, than mere speculative science, however refined and sublime 
it may be." 



HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,' 
82 CLIFF STREET, NEW YORK. , 

18 47. 






■«^\ X 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York 



PREFACE. 



Ir is singular that so little interest should heretofore have been 
taken in the histoiy of those to whom we are indebted for the 
arts and inventions constituting the glory of our time. The pen 
has ever been more ready to record the brilliant than the useful. 
To this is to be attributed the neglect heretofore manifested in 
relation to these subjects. Indeed, so little regard has been 
evinced, that a late foreign writer, who happened incidentally to 
be " thrown upon" some incidents in the life of an eminent 
mechanician, considered it due to the fastidiousness of public 
taste, to claim indulgence for diverging into so obscure and 
tasteless a path of biographical research. But, thanks to the 
more general diffusion of knowledge and the light of Christianity, 
this false taste is rapidly dissipating, and mankind are beginning 
to appreciate the labors of those to whom we are indebted for 
our present unparalleled state of intellectual and social advance- 
ment. 

The memoirs of the benefactors of our race, in past ages, are 
often histories of wrong ; and those who have labored in the 
department of mechanical invention, may truly be termed the 
martyrs nf civilization ! The causes producing this state of 



4 PREFACE. 

things are fading away before the inteUigence of the times, and 
wise and just laws are in operation to protect the defenceless. 
As has been aptly observed, " the strife of trade has superseded 
the strife of war," — the clash and din of arms has given place to 
the busy hum of industry, the ringing of the anvil, the melody 
of the waterfall, and the puff of the steam engine. The days 
of tournaments are past, — the mechanic fairs are our " tilting 
grounds," where the conflict is not for physical superiority, bul 
for inventions best promoting the comfort and elegance of Ufe. 
Although much has been done, more remains to be accomplished. 
This new world is to be a theatre of mighty structures for the 
development of resources, advancing, beyond present conception, 
the welfare and happiness of our race 

Biographies of public individuals have their peculiar advan- 
tages ; but examples drawn from the common walks prove of 
more practical utility. Such are here presented ; and it is judged 
that their perusal will be found at least as useful as tracing the 
progress of a military hero through scenes of blood, or witness- 
ing the more peaceful triumphs of some champion in the field of 
political strife. 

With these views we have prosecuted this undertaking, in the 
. hope of producing a series of memoirs, which, while of general 
interest, would be useful to the mechanic : and the aim being to 
give as much variety as possible within our assigned limits, we 
have reluctantly excluded several characters, who, but for their 
similarity of pursuit, would have adorned our pages. 

The materials are drawn from a variety of sources ; but we are 
principally indebted to the various mechanical journals of the day, 
including the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 



PREFACE. 5 

Knowledge. Most of the memoirs, however, in the American 
department were written expressly for the work, while several 
of the others in this as well as in the other portion have under- 
gone more or less modification. 

To those who have kindly furnished us with notices of their 
respective friends, we feel duly grateful. To the public we pre- 
sent the result of our labors, with the desire that it may excite 
emulation, and illustrate and encourage the talent and persever- 
ance required for a successful cultivation of the mechanic arts. 

H. H. 

Nkw Haven, Ct., Nov. 20, 1839. 



CONTENTS. 



AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

FAGE 

John Fitch 13 

Benjamin Franklin ....... 57 

Oliver Evans 68 

Samuel Slater . . . .. . . . 85 

Eli Whitney ........ 101 

David Bushnell . . . . . , . .136 

Amos Whittebiore . . • . . . .147 

Robert Fulton . . . . . . . . 156 

Jacob Perkins 188 

Thomas Blanchard . . . . . . .197 

Henry Eckford . . . . . . . .211 



CONTENTS 



EUROPEAN MECHANICS. 



John Smeatow . 
Marquis of Worcester 
James Ferguson 
Samuel Crompton . 
William Edwards . 
Richard Arkwright 
m. guinand 
James Watt 
James Brindley 
Jesse Ramsden . 
Earl of Stanhope 
hohlfield 
Matthew Boulton 
Tncf^MAS Telford 
Edmund Cartwright 
John Whitehurst 
James Hargreaves 
Joseph Bramah. 



PAGE I 

219 ; 

228 i 
237 ; 
249 j 
253 I 
258 ] 
270 I 
279 I 
298 I 
313 ' 
318 -j 
323 I 
327 
330 
336 

342 i 
347 I 
350 i 



ANECDOTES, DESCRIPTIONS, 

ETC., ETC., 
RELATING TO THE MECHANIC ARTS. 



Progress of Invention illustrated ..... 
Illustration of the Ignorance of Foreigners respecting 

American Inventions 
Singular Origin of the Invention of Frame-work Knitting 
Ancient and Modern Labor 
The Slide of Alpnach 
American Road-making 
Archimedes ..... 

The Inventor of the Iron Plough . 
Cotton Manufacture of India . ^• 

Description of the Bridge at the Niagar^Falls 
Thomas Godfrey .... 

Musical Kaleidescope .... 
Bernard Palissy .... 

Dyeing Cloth of two Colors . 
Remarkable Wooden Bridge 
Celebrated and curious Clocks 
Manufacture of Porcelain and Earthenware 
Inventors and Poets .... 
Public Works of the United States 
Manufactory of the Gobehns 
March of Umbrellas .... 
The French Machine-maker 
Manufacturing EstabUshments 
The Mechanical Fiddler 



PAGE 

353 

355 
358 
360 
361 
364 
367 
370 
372 
376 
378 

380 
380 
381 
386 
391 
392 
394 
395 
396 
400 
402 



10 CONTENTS. 




PASa 


Corn Mills in ancient times . 




404 


The Obelisk of Luxor 




409 


American Steamers ... 




416 


Simple Origin of important Discoveries 




426 


Invention of the Safety Lamp 




427 


The Thames Tunnel .... 




428 


Watchmaking in Switzerland 




441 


Perpetual Motion .... 




44.5 


The Balsa 




448 


Automata 




449 


Mechanical Automata of the Ancients 




450 


Automata of Dsedalus . 




450 


Wooden Pigeon of Archytas 




450 


Automatic Clock of Charlemagne . 




450 


Automata of Muller and Turrianus 




451 


Camus's Carriage 




451 


Degennes' Mechanical Peacock 




452 


Vaucanson"'s Duck 




452 


Drawing and writing Automata 




453 


Maillardet''s Conjurer , 




453 


Benefits derived from the passion for Automata 


454 


Duncan's Tambouring Machine . 




455 


Watt's Statue-turning Machinery . 




457 


Babbage's Calculating Machine 




457 


Automaton Chess Player 




460 


Chinese Bamboo L'rigation Wheel 




469 


Discovery of Gunpowder, and Inventions 


arising there. 




from ...... 


. 


470 


A few Remarks on the Relation which subsists between 




a Machine and its Model 




471 


Shoes and Buckles .... 




475 


The Croton Aqueduct 




476 


Cugnot's Steam Carriage . . . • 




479 


Eloquent Description ..... 




480 


Watchmaker's Epitaph 




482 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Frontispiece. 






f-^ciS 


Fitch's Steamboat 31 { 


The first American Locomotive ; or, the " Oructor Am. 




phiboKs " of Evans 
View of Pawtucket 






77 
93 


Birth-place of Whitney . , . 
Cotton Gin, (Plan) 






103 

108 


Ditto, (Section) 

View of Wliitney's Armory . 

Tomb of Whitney .... 

Destruction of a British Tender by a Torpedo 






109 

124 

. 135 

. 141 


Stationary Torpedo ..... 
Fulton's first American Steamboat 






166 
179 


Blanchard's Engine for turning irregular forms 






203 


Eddystone Bond ..... 






225 


Eddystone Lighthouse in a Storm . 






. 227 


Hall-in-the-wood, near Bolton 






. 251 


Arkwright's first Cotton Factory at Cromford 






. 266 


Aqueduct over the Irwell 
Menai Suspension Bridge 






. 307 
. 333 


The Hydrostatic Press 






. 351 


Progress of Invention illustrated . . 
Wooden Pavement .... 




S 


53, 354 
. 367 


Spinning-wheel of India . . . 






. 372 


Hindoos weaving ..... 






. 373 



12 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FAUB 

Longitudinal Section of Thames Tunnel, showing its course 

under the river . 434 

Longitudinal Section of Thames Tunnel, with an end view 

of the Shield 434 

Cross Section of Thames Tunnel, showing the arrange- 
ment of the masonry . . . . . . 439 

The Balsa 448 

Chinese Irrigation Wheel . . . . . .469 

Croton Aqueduct 478 



PORTRAITS. 






PAGE 




PAGE 


Benjamin Franklin . 


36 


Worcester . . . 


. . 231 


Oliver Evans . . . 


69 


James Ferguson . 


. 236 


Samuel Slater . . . 


84 


Samuel Crompton 


. . 248 


Eli Whitney . . . 


100 


Richard Arkwright 


. 259 


Amos Whittemore . 


146 


James Watt . . 


. 278 


Robert Fulton . . 


157 


James Brindley . 


. 299 


Jacob Perkins . . 


189 


Stanhope . . . 


. . 319 


Thomas Blanchard . 


196 


Matthew Boulton . 


. 326 


John Smeaton . . . 


218 


John Whitehurst . 


. 343 



AMERICAN MECHANICS. 



JOHN FITCH, 

AN EARLY STEAMBOAT im^'ENTOR 



' The invention all admired, and each how he 
To he the inventor missed : so easy it seemed. 
Once found, which yet unfouud, most would have thought 
Impossible." Milton. 



Who invented the first steamboat 1 — Early experimenters in steam — Blasco 
de Garay. — Jonathan Hulls. — Fitch's manuscript. — Birth. — Character of hia 
parents. — Loses his mother. — Juvenile heroism. — Mother-in-law. — Schoolboy 
days. — Becomes a great arithmetician. — Father's austerity.— Hears of a won- 
derful book. — Great thirst for knowledge. — Self-denial and industry. — Makes 
a purchase. — Becomes a great geographer. — Father purchases him scale and 
dividers. — Great joy thereat. — Studies surveying. — Surveys with the governor, 
and paid in glory. — Leaves school for the farm. — Brother's tyranny. — Desires 
to study astronomy. ^Relaxes from studious habits. — Embarks as a cabin-boy 
in a coaster. — Cruel treatment. — Leaves, and enters another. — Makes a short 
voyage. — Returns. — Accidental meeting with a clockmaker. — "Wishes to enter 
his sers'ice. — Selfish opposition of his parents. — Kindness of his brother-in- 
law. — Enters the clockmaker's service. — His neglect. — Leaves in ignorance 
of his profession. — Enters the service of a clockmaker and watch repairer. — 
Gross injustice. — Leaves. — New employment, and success. — A change, and 
misfortune. — Marries. — Unhappy life. — Abandons his yflk- — AVanders.— Visits 
the Jerseys. — Sickly appearance a prevention to obtaining employment as a 
day-laborer. — Turns button-maker. — Revolutionary war. — Repairs arms for 
the continental army. — Employed in Kentucky as a surveyor. — Taken prisoner 
by the Indians, and. carried into captivity. — Release. — Returns to the east. — 
First idea of a steamboat. — Curious reflections. — Dr. Thornton's account of 
his experiments. — Note. — Biographical Sketch of Rumsey. — Description of 
Fitch's boat. — Goes out to France. — Return. — Misfortunes. — Generosity of a 
relation.— Visits Kentucky. — Better prospects. — Death. 

" Who invented the first steamboat ?" is a question which has 
excited great controversy, — an achievement of which nations as 
well as individuals have been covetous. 

Several of the early experimenters in steam appear to have con- 
ceived of the idea. The first account we have on the subject is 
given in a work recently published in Spain, containing original 
papers relating to the vovagepf Columbus, said to have been pre- 

2 



14 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

served in the royal archives at Samancas, and among the public 
papers of Catalonia and those of the secretary at war for the year 
1543. This narrative states that " Blasco de Garay, a sea cap- 
tain, exhibited to the emperor and king Charles V., in the year 
1543, an engine by which ships and vessels of the largest size 
could be propelled, even in a calm, without the aid of oars or saUs. 
Notwithstanding the opposition which this project encountered, 
the emperor resolved that an experiment should be made, as in 
fact it was, with success, in the harbor of Barcelona, on the 17th 
of June, 1543. Garay never publicly exposed the construction of 
his engine, but it was observed at the time of his experiment, that 
it consisted of a large caldron or vessel of boiling water, and a 
moveable wheel attached to each side of the ship. The experi- 
ment was made on a ship of 209 tons, arrived from Calibre, to 
discharge a cargo of wheat at Barcelona ; it was called the Tri- 
nity, and the captain's name was Peter de Scarza. By order of 
Charles V. and the prince Philip the Second, his son, there were 
present at the time, Henry de Toledo, the governor, Peter Car- 
dona, the treasurer, Ravago, the vice-chancellor, Francis Gralla, 
and many other persons of rank, both Castilians and Catalonians ; 
and among others, several sea captains witnessed the operation, 
some in the vessel, and others on the shore. The emperor and 
prince, and others with them, applauded the engine, and especially 
the expertness with which the ship could be tacked. The trea- 
surer Ravago, an enemy to the project, said it would move two 
leagues in three hours. It was very complicated and expensive, 
and exposed to the constant danger of bursting the boiler. The 
other commissioners affirmed, that the vessel could be tacked 
twice as quick as a galley served by the common method, and 
that at its slowest rate it would move a league in an hour. The 
exhibition being finished, Garay took from the ship his engine, 
and having deposited the wood work in the arsenal of Barcelona, 
kept the rest to himself. Notwithstanding the difficulties and 
opposition thrown in the way by Ravago, the invention was ap- 
proved ; and if the expedition in which Charles V. was then 
engaged had not failed, it would undoubtedly have been favored 
by him. As it was, he raised Garay to a higher station, gave 
him a sum of money (200,000 maravedies) ag a present, ordered 
all the expenses of the experiment to be paid out of the general 
treasury, and conferred upon him other rewards." 

The editor of the Franklin Journal, from which this extract has 
been made, observes, " when the ' Public Records ' shall appear 
in an authentic form, their evidence must be admitted ; until then 
he should not be inclined to commence the history of the inven. 



JOHN FITCH. 15 

tion of the steamboat so far back as 1543. For circumstantial as 
the account is, it seems to have been written since the days of 
Fulton." 

He is not alone in this opinion, as it is universally regarded 
as a mere fiction, the offspring of an individual jealous of his 
country's reputation. 

The most prominent and authentic account of the early projects 
of applying steam as a motive power to the propelling of vessels, 
is given in a treatise printed in London in 1737, entitled " De- 
scription and draught of a new-invented machine, for carrying 
vessels out of, or into any harbor, port, or river, against wind and 
tide or in a calm : for which his majesty George II. has granted 
letters patent for the sole benefit of the author, for the space of 
fourteen years ; by Jonathan Hulls." The draught or drawing 
prefixed is a plate of a stout boat with chimney smoking, a pair 
of wheels rigged out over each side of the stern, moved by means 
of ropes passing round their outer rims ; and to the axis of these 
wheels are fixed six paddles to propel the boat. From the stern 
of the boai a tow-line passes to the foremast of a two-decker, 
which the boat thus tows through the water. There is no evi- 
dence that Hulls ever applied his conceptions to practice. 

Since that time, down to the period of the great and successful 
experiments of Fulton, several attempts were made here and in 
Europe, with varied success. Among the most, if not the most 
conspicuous, were those made by the subject of this article. 

A few years previous to his death, Fitch prepared a memoir of 
himself, including a history of his experiments in steam. These 
papers were bequeathed to the Franklin Library of Philadelphia, 
with directions that they should be unsealed and perused thirty 
years from the time of his decease. At the appointed period they 
were opened, and found to contain a very full account of his life, 
particularly of that portion which related to his experiments in 
steam, including the progress of his operations from the time the 
thought first occurred to him, until the completion of the boat so 
far as to make numerous experiments on the Delaware, — the sub- 
sequent alterations made, and the final abandonment of the schen e 
by the original stockholders. 

These manuscripts show but one tissue of discouragements and 
perplexities, and prove him to have been a strong-minded but un. 
lettered man, Avith a perseverance almost unexampled, and a de. 
termination to let no difficulty in the execution of his plan prevent 
him from endeavoring to bring it to perfection, so long as the 
shareholders furnished the means of defraying the expenses. 
Indeed, disappointment and oppi'ession appear to have borne bin- 



16 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

company from his very youth ; and, as he himself remarks, it j'^ 
the history of one of the most " singular" as well as one of the 
most " unfortunate men in the world /" 

From this narrative we shall make liberal quotations, especially 
from that portion relating to his younger days. It is the incidents 
of youth that give a tone and direction to character. We can 
all of us refer to some of the most apparently trivial events of 
earlier years that have completely changed the whole current of 
our thoughts and pursuits. In the memoir before us there can 
be traced, with a minuteness uncommon even in biography, those 
circumstances which moulded his strong mind into its peculiar^ 
model ; and we can there perceive the origin of that misanthropical 
cast of thought, — that eccentricity of character and that looseness 
of sentiment in regard to concerns of a serious nature, which so 
strongly marked the author of its pages. 

This memoir is addressed to the " worthy Nathaniel Irwin, of 
Neshamoney," in Pennsylvania, a clergyman and a gentleman of 
whose talents and kindness of disposition Fitch had formed the 
highest estimate, and who, it appears, once i-equested him to pre- 
pare something of the kind. The principal reason which Fitch 
gives for complying with this request was, that his life had been 
filled with such a variety of changes, affording such useful lessons 
to mankind, that he considered it a neglect of duty were he to 
suppress it. 

" The 21st of January, 1743, old style," says he, " was the 
fatal time of bringing me into existence. The house I was born 
in wag upon the line between Hartford and Windsor (Connecticut.) 
It was said I was born in Windsor ;* but from the singularity of 
my make, shape, disposition, and fortune in the world, I am in- 
clined to believe that it was the design of Heaven that I should be 
born on the very line, and not in any township whatever ; yet am 
happy also that it did not happen between two states, that I can 
say I was born somewhere." 

Fitch's father was a farmer in good circumstances. His be- 
setting sin seems to have consisted in a want of generosity in 
pecuniary affairs, — so much so that his son observes, " I presume 
he never spent five shillings at a tavern during the whole course 
of his life." This, in our day, would be considered as a very 
singular and inapt illustration of that trait of disposition ; but when 
we remember the customs of society at that period, and the total 
deprivation of every thing like " amusement," inseparable from 
the isolated condition of agriculturists, we shall comprehend some- 

* Now East Windsor. 



JOHN FITCH 17 

thing like tne spirit of the allusion. Still, his parent appears to 
have been a good provider ; for he goes on to state, " we always 
had plenty of victuals and drink in the house. In the whole coui'se 
of my acquaintance with him, I never knew him out of cider but 
about two weeks, and never out of pickled pork. Our victuals 
were coarse, but wholesome, such as pork and beans, codfish and 
potatoes, hasty pudding and milk," and, what was particularly 
valued, " always a stout hasty pudding after dinner." His pa- 
rents had five children, two sons and two daughters, besides the 
" unfortunate John." 

" From the time of my birth," says he, " until I was five years 
of age, nothing material happened to me that I can recollect, any 
more than crawling along the floor and picking ants out of the 
cracks, and now and then catching a fly, which made as lively 
impression on my mind, as great, perhaps, as the Trojan war on 
the minds of heroes." 

" When I was four years old I went to school : I know from 
the circumstance that my mistress used to ask me how my mother 
was, and she died when I was five years old. I recollect that I 
learned to spell the first summer before my mother's death, whilst 
I went to Mrs. Rockwell. I remember frequently spelling there 
without the book the words commandment, Jerusalem, &c. But 
soon the fatal day arrived when my mother's guardianship should 
be taken from me, and early in the fall I was deprived of her. 
Although I did not consider my loss, natural affection carried my 
griefs to a very great excess for a child of my age." He here, 
and frequently elsewhere, speaks of his mother with regard, and 
no doubt her loss proved injurious to him. She was a kind and 
affectionate woman, without those disagreeable traits which marked 
the character of his other parent. 

" When about six years of age," he remarks, " a most extra- 
ordinary circumstance happened to me, worthy of the notice of a 
Roman soldier." Returning from school about dusk one day, he 
found no one in the house except a little sister, his second brother 
being in the barn yard holding a " wicked cow " for his eldest 
sister to milk. This little sister being anxious to show him a 
present which she had received during the day, it being too dark 
to see without, lighted a candle to find it. Unfortunately, in her 
search she set fire to two large bundles of flax standing in a dis- 
tant corner of the room, which young Fitch no sooner observed, 
than, with a presence of mind truly wonderful in a child so young, 
he ran and seized one of the blazing bundles, which was more than 
he was enabled to lift without resting it upon his knees, carried i\ 
to the hearth, and threw it down. In so doing he blistered his 

2* 



18 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

hands and set his hair in a blaze, but, smothering the fire on hi? 
head with his naked hands, he sprang and grasped the other 
bundle and brought it to the same place, blistering his hands and 
setting his head on fire the second time, and putting it out in like 
manner. Having done this, he jumped upon the bundles until the 
fire was extinguished. " In the mean time,'' he says, " whilst I 
was thus occupied, my little sister Chloe being frightened, ran to 
the barn yard, and probably told my brother some improper story. 
When I had the fire put out, notwithstanding my painful hands 
and smarting face, which was then covered with blisters, I went 
to relate the tale to my elder brother ; but no sooner did I arrive 
in the yard than he fell foul of me, boxing my ears and beating 
me beyond reason for the greatest fault, and would not give me 
leave to say a word in my behalf. As my father had that evening 
gone a courting, I had nowhere to apply to for redress, therefore 
was obliged not only to submit to the greatest indignities, but to 
the greatest injustice. On his return I made complaints, but with- 
out satisfaction or redress. This being what I may call the first 
act of my life, seemed to forebode the future rewards that I was 
to receive for my labors through it, which has generally corre- 
sponded with that." 

When he was about seven years old, his father married " one 
Abigail Church," whom he describes as being an orderly, easy, 
tempered old maid of forty, possessing sense sufficient to manage 
the affairs of the house. 

" My father," he continues, " kept me constantly at school until 
I was eight or nine years of age, as my schooling cost him nothing. 
When the weather was too bad to go to school, he had goodness 
enough to encoui'age my learning my book at home, and would 
frequently teach me. Before I was ten years old I could say the 
New England Primer all by heart, from Adam's fall to the end of 
the catechism. But the most surprising thing of my learning ap- 
pears to me to be this : My father had an old arithmetic book in 
the house, by one Hodder, with the old-fashioned division in it. 
I was able at nine years of age to make figures pretty well, as 
well as to write a legible hand. Whenever I had a minute's lei- 
sure I would have that book in my hand, and learned myself out 
of it the true principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication, 
and division ; and the year that I was nine years of age, could 
tell how many minutes old I should be when I should have seen 
ten years, but was not able to multiply the figure nine : this I did 
in the pi'esence of four or five neighbors one rainy day, to their 
admiration. When about eight years of age, my father took me 
from school, and set me to work in the most serious and diligent 



JOHN FITCH. 19 

manner, although I was exceedingly small of my age, and scarcely 
able to swingle more than two pounds of flax, or thresh more than 
two bushels of grain, with the steadiness of a man of thirty years 
for that trifling, pitiful labor. I was prevented from going to school 
more than one month m the winter, when he saw that I was nearly 
crazy after learning, and then I was always obliged to leave before 
it was out to come home to help him fodder." 

" My father was one of the most strenuous of the sect of Pres- 
byterians, and a bigot, which he carried to such excess that I dare 
not go into the garden to pick currants or into the orchard to get 
apples on the sabbath. I really believe that he thought it the 
extent of his duty toward me to learn me to read the Bible, that I 
might find the way to heaven ; when he had done that he felt per- 
fectly easy, and if I could earn him twopence per day it ought not 
to be lost. It may be irreverent for me thus to speak as I have 
done of a parent, but I mean to communicate the truth to you, and 
in as particular a manner as I can." Without apologizing for the 
unnatural language of Fitch in thus speaking of a parent, we can 
perceive in that austerity and scrupulous observance of the mere 
outward forms of religion which he evinced, without being suffi- 
ciently guided by its true spirit to act generously and fairly by 
those around him, the origin of that infidelity of sentiment which 
formed so striking a feature in the character of his son. 

" But notwithstanding," continues Fitch, " he suppressed me 
from going to school, he did not hinder me from studying such 
books as he had ; and at noontimes and evenings, instead of play, 
ing, as is common with boys of that age, I was as studious as the 
most zealous student under the eyes of a tutor, and, in particular, 
in Hodder's Arithmetic, which went as far as Alligation Alternate. 
When I was eleven years old, I heard of a book that would give 
me a knowledge of the whole world, which was Salmon's Geog- 
raphy. I repeatedly requested my father to get it for me, but to 
no purpose. I then proposed to him to give me some headlands 
at the end of a field to plant potatoes, which he granted, and I dug 
it up by hand on a holyday." This holyday was the annual meet, 
ing of the militia of the state. Every reader who can recollect in 
the times of liis boyhood how delightfully the old distich, 

" First Monday in May 
Is training day," 

used to sound in his ears, when he looked forward in anticipation 
to the glories of that jubilee, can form some idea of the thirst for 
knowledge which young Fitch here evinced in denying himself a 
participation in its pleasures. Having thus prepared the land, he 



20 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

planted it with potatoes, cultivating them at noontimes and al 
evenings, after the labors of the day were over. He says, " I 
raised several bushels, and in the fall sold them, and got ten shil- 
lings in money, and went to a merchant in the neighborhood who 
dealt in New York, who promised me to get the book, and fulfilled 
his promise. But the book cost twelve shillings, and I was two 
shillings in debt, which gave me a great deal of uneasiness. By 
some means, I do not recollect how, I soon discharged it, but was 
obliged to return the seed to my father in the fall. 

" What makes me pretty sure it happened when I was eleven 
years of age, is this : it was about one year after I planted the 
potatoes before I got the book, and I learned surveying that winter 
I was thirteen years of age, and when I learned that, I presume I 
was the best geographer of the world, that Connecticut could pro- 
duce, according to Salmon, at that time. No question could be 
asked me of aij.^ nation, but I would tell their number, religion, 
their latitude and longitude, and turn at once to any town marked 
on the maps, which could not be acquired in less than in about 
one year, considering the small opportunities I had of studying, 
which was only in the intervals of hard labor and times for rest. 

" My father never allowed me to go to school more than one 
month in a year, except that winter I was thirteen years of age, 
when he permitted me to go about five or six weeks. After I had 
got through with common arithmetic, my master told me in public 
school that he could learn me no farther in arithmetic, but, if I 
chose, he would learn me surveying. I so earnestly insisted on 
my father to indulge me in this, that he could not resist my en- 
treaties, and went to Hartford and got a scale and a pair of 
dividers, and on his return I never felt a greater sense of grati- 
tude to mortal man than I did to him at that time, and in two 
weeks learned what we called surveying in New England. I knew 
no better, but thought myself perfect master, but learned nothing 
of logarithms, or of calculation. by latitude and departure, only 
geometrically. As I had learned common arithmetic out of school 
by myself, I had but little to do while there, only to go through 
what I had really learned, except division, which took me about 
half a day to learn the different mode before I could be ready 
at it." 

" My father had meadow lands adjoining the governor of the 
colony. He frequently came under the shade with us in mowing 
time ; and seeing me a little, forward boy, one day requested my 
father to let me go to carry the chain with him, to measure off 
some small parcels. His request was easily granted, as is com. 
mon for poor men to exert themselves to oblige the great. This 



JOHN FITCH. -21 

happened when I was about ten or eleven years of age. In this 
undertaking the governor was exceedingly familiar with me, and 
would consult me on the most minute part of the business as much 
as if I had been an able counselloi", and as if he knew nothing of 
the business himself. I was equally proud of his company, and 
as officious as I could be to render him every service." 

" We could not finish the surveying that evening, but left, I 
believe, seven or eight acres when we quit. He left the chain, 
and gave me directions how to lay it off for sundry people ; I being 
proud of the office, readily accepted it, and executed it faithfully. 
Some time after, the governor called at my father's house for the 
chain ; I fetched it to him with the greatest expedition, and ex- 
pectation of some pennies, when he took it, put it in his saddle- 
bags, and rode off without saying a word ! My mortification at 
this time was nearly equal to the usage I met with in extinguish- 
ing the fire in my father's house ; yet I am persuaded the governor 
was an honest man, but concluded within himself that the honor 
would fully compensate me." 

On leaving school. Fitch's whole time was devoted to the labors 
of the farm. His duties were so very severe, that he expresses 
an opinion that it " stunted him," and prevented his growth for 
sevei'al years. Independent of the severity of his father in thus 
keeping him so hard at work, he was subject to the tyranny of an 
elder brother, who sought every opportunity to oppress him and 
crush his spirits, cruelly compelling him to such an exertion in 
his labors that he was often " ready to faint," and speaking 
in such a manner as to put him in continual apprehension of a 
beating. " For this treatment," says he, " I do not thank my 
unfeeling father and tyrant brother ; and although I have not seen 
him for twenty years, would not go to the nearest neighbor's to 
see him, unless he was in distress. Could I be set into a Virginia 
field amongst their slaves, with the severest driver at my back, I 
would sooner engage in it than go through the same again." 

In speaking of an almost miraculous escape from injury in 
falling from a tree which happened about this period, he observes, 
" it seems heaven designed me for some more cruel fate." 

While on the farm, young Fitch was extremely desirous to 
study astronomy, and in vain solicited his father to procure the 
necessary works ; but, in some degree from the severity of his 
duties, partly from the want of books, and having already attained 
a greater amount of learning than any of his neighbors, he con. 
tinues, " I imperceptibly left my studies, and fell into the common 
practices of boys in our neighborhood, and devoted myself to play, 
when I could steal a minute, as much as I had before to my books. 



22 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

This helped to sweeten life ; and from the time I was thirteen 
and fourteen years of age until I went apprentice, I enjoyed my. 
self as well as most of the Virginia slaves, who have liberty to go 
to a dance once a week." 

" During that time there was nothing material happened to me. 
I seemed to be beloved both by old and young, as I could speak 
rationally to the old, and was always foremost among my play- 
fellows." 

When about seventeen years of age, Fitch was aixsious to learn 
some trade or go to sea, by which he " could make a living when 
he came to himself." He expressed these views to his father, at 
the same time representing that he was too small and weak to 
obtain a support by agricultural employments. His parent re- 
luctantly consented. In the following September the steeple to 
the village church v/as raised. This was indeed a gala day, and 
the people from Hartford and the whole country round flocked to 
witness this then uncommon spectacle. Although, as he tells us, 
he had " a singular curiosity in witnessing mechanical operations," 
yet was determined to forego the pleasure, and borrowed a horse 
for the purpose of visiting Rocky Hill, a parish in Wethersfield, 
where there were a great number of coasters. The object of this 
visit was to engage a berth for a short voyage, to settle his opinion 
as to the propriety of learning a trade or becoming a seaman. 

A place was first engaged on board of a sloop bound to New 
York, " under one Captain Abbott." This situation was found 
very disagreeable. The master treated him with brutality ; and 
although there were plenty of empty berths, he was compelled by 
the mate Starr, to lie upon deck on a chest, much too short, and 
this, too, without any covering. Such usage was considered " ex- 
tremely hard, after having been used to a comfortable bed at 
home." 

An occasion offering a day or two subsequent, he left and went 
on board of a Providence sloop. Here things were found very 
comfortable, and although not in accordance to stipulation. Fitch 
evinced such zeal and industry that his master paid him wages, 
and he made a " saving voyage." " I returned home," says he, 
" neither enamoured with the sea nor resolved against it, and in 
as much of a quandary how to dispose of myself as ever." 

Accident, however, soon threw him in the way of a neighboring 
clockmaker, who proposed to him to enter into his service. On 
expressing to his parents his desire to learn the business, they 
strenuously opposed his wishes, and this, too, without any regard 
to their son's welfare, but merely from a selfish unwillingness to 
dispense with his services on the farm, which had then become 



JOHN FITCH. 23 

quite valuable. Their opposition came near frustrating the plan. 
On mentioning his troubles to his sister and her husband, Mr. 
Timothy King, although poor, they offered to advance the neces- 
sary funds. Fitch says, " these two persons were the greatest 
ornament that ever adorned my father's family. My sister was 
the most mannerly, generous-spirited woman that I ever saw, not 
only to me, but to others, and probably might take it in some 
manner from her husband, as good wives endeavor to recommend 
themselves to their husbands by adopting their sentiments." Other 
obstacles were throv/n in his way, but he successfully overcame 
them. 

He describes the clockmaker as an eccentric man, and possess- 
ing some genius. According to agreement. Fitch was to work 
seven months in the year in the out-door concerns of his employer, 
— ^the remainder of the time to devote to the pursuit of the art and 
mysteries of wooden clock-making. But his master by no means 
acted in conformity to contract, keeping his apprentice almost 
continually in attendance upon his domestic concerns ; and even 
during the small portion of the time he was employed in the shop, 
so neglected to instruct him, that at the expiration of two years 
and a half. Fitch left almost entirely ignorant of his profession. 

After this he went to work with a brother of his former em- 
ployer, who was engaged in a similar business, and who unitec 
with the manufacture of clocks the repairing of watches. This 
latter art it was especially stipulated should be taught his new ap- 
prentice ; he not only omitted to do it, but took particular pains 
to prevent his learning, working himself in a distant part of the 
room, locking up his tools when absent, and forbidding Fitch evei 
to touch them. Fitch was a_ways kept busy on some unimportant 
part, so that during the eight months he was in this person's ser- 
vice, he never even saw a watch taken to pieces or put together, 
and, in fact, had no opportunity of obtaining any insight of the 
subject whatever. Nor did oppression end here ; " although," 
he observes, " I possessed a small appetite, I never was given 
sufficient to satisfy it, except on one occasion, when I managed 
to make a good, hearty meal on potatoes. Being an inferior, I 
was helped last at the table ; the females would then discoui-se 
upon gluttony, and my master, hastily devouring his own food, 
would immediately return thanks for that which himself and others 
eat, as well as for that which his apprentice did not." Fitch 
was kept very hard and steady at work from before sunrise in 
winter until ten o'clock at night, and as many hours dui'ing the 
summer, with, however, one single exception, — this was on the 
occasion of the sickness and death of his master's child, when 

2 



24 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

he was obliged to walk six miles for a physician. Shortly after 
his return the child died. " During the night," says he, " I 
watched with the corpse, with the privilege of as much water 
from the well as I desired, by way of refreshment." 

On leaving his last employer, he dared not set up the business 
on his own account, or work as a journeyman, for fear of exhibit, 
ing his ignorance, but employed himself, as he tells us, " in doing 
small brass work." This was pursued by him with so much in- 
dustry, that at the end of two years he found himself worth fifty 
pounds, which for him, considering the scarcity of money at the 
time, was viewed as " quite a treasure," and enabled him to pay 
off his debts, and have something "handsome left." Fitch after, 
wards entered into the potash business, but was unsuccessful in 
its prosecution, arising partially from the unfaithfulness of one of 
his partners. While thus engaged, he married Miss Lucy Ro. 
berts, on 29th December, 1767 ; but owing to her unhappy temper 
and disposition, was compelled, in the course of a year or two, to 
abandon her, being thoroughly convinced that it was for the happi- 
ness of both that they should separate. This event occasioned 
him great affliction, from being obliged to leave a child whom he 
" loved as dear as himself." A misfortune subsequently happen, 
ing to her, he observes, " could I have foreseen it, I should never 
have abandoned her, but have endeavored to worry through life in 
her company as well as I might." 

On forsaking the place of his nativity, Fitch went to Pittsfield, 
Mass., but not having constant employment there, visited Albany, 
yet with no better success. A short time after, we find him in 
New Jersey, in a destitute condition, endeavoring to find employ- 
ment on some farm as a common laborer, but his sickly appear- 
ance baffled all his efforts, — ^no one would employ him. Finally, 
he entered into the business of making buttons, which he pursued 
with tolerable success, first at New Brunswick, and afterwards at 
Trenton. 

At the commencement of the revolution, Fitch espoused the 
popular cause, and during a portion of the time rendered himself 
veiy useful in repairing arms for the continental army. Subse- 
quently he removed to Kentucky, where he received the appoint, 
ment and practised as a surveyor. While at the West, and in 
navigating a river in a small boat. Fitch and his companions were 
taken prisoners and carried into captivity by the Indians, but after 
considerable hardship and suffering, Avere released. At a subse- 
quent period he became once more an inhabitant of one of the 
Atlantic states. 

" In the month of April, 1785," says Fitch, in the manuscript 








i ^ 

I s 

•a P 

g. O 

o. hd 

>§ « 

^ 9 






JOHN FITCH. 27 

alluded to, " 1 was so unfortunate as to have an idea that a car- 
riage might be carried by the force of steam along the roads. 
I pursued that idea about one week, and gave it over as imprac- 
ticable, or, in other words, turned my thoughts to vessels. From 
that time I have pursued the idea to this day with unremitted assi- 
duity, yet do ii-ankly confess that it has been the most imprudent 
scheme that ever I engaged in. The perplexities and embarrass- 
ments through which it has caused me to wade, far exceed any 
thing that the common course of life ever presented to my view , 
and to reflect on the disproportion of a man of my abilities to 
such a task, I am to charge myself with having been deranged ; 
and had I not the most convincing proofs to the contrary, should 
most certainly suppose myself to have been non compos mentis at 
the time." 

In another place he remarks, " If I had the abilities of Cicero, 
it would have been nothing less than madness in me to have un- 
dertaken it, in ray state of penury. Had I been a nobleman of 
£3000, it would barely have justified my conduct." 

Again, he says, " What I am now to inform you of I know will 
not be to my credit, but, so long as it is the truth, I will insert it, 
viz., that I did not know that there was a steam engine on earth 
when I proposed to gain a force by steam ; and I leave my first 
drafts and descriptions behind, that you may judge whether I am 
sincere or not. A short time after drawing my first draft for a 
boat, I was amazingly chagrined to find, at Parson Irwin's, in 
Bucks county, a drawing of a steam engine ; but it had the efi'ect 
to establish me in my other principles, as my doubts lay at tliat 
time in the engine only." 

The following account of Fitch's experiments is written by one 
of his early patrons, the late Dr. Thornton, of the patent office at 
Washington, and is entitled " A short account of the origin of 
steamboats ;" — 

" Finding that Mr. Robert Fulton,* whose genius and talents I 
highly respect, has been considered by some the inventor of the 
steamboat, I think it a duty td the memory of the late John Fitch 
to set forth, with as much brevity as possible, the fallacy of this 
opinion ; and to show, moreover, that if Mr. Fulton has any claim 
whatever to originality in his steamboat, it must be exceedingly 
Hmited. 

" In the year 1788, the late John Fitch applied for, and ob- 
tained a patent for the application of steam to navigation, in the 

* Tt may not be invidious here to mention, tliat one great advantage which 
Mr. Fulton possessed over many, if not all preceding experimenters, was the 
use of one of Vv'ntt's improved steam engines. 



28 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, &c. ; 
and soon after, the late Mr. James Rumsey,* conceiving he had 
made some discoveries in perfecting the same, applied to the state 
of Pennsylvania for a patent ; but a company formed by John 

* Biographical Sketch of James Rumsey. — " This individual was a native of Mary- 
land, and, when a young man, removed to Shepherdstown, Virginia, where he 
occupied liimself exclusively in mechanical subjects. As early as July or August, 
1783, he directed his attention to the subject of navigation by steam ; and, under 
the most disadvantageous circumstances, succeeded, in the autumn of 1784, in 
making a private, but very imperfect experiment, in order to test some of the 
principles of his invention. This so well convinced him of its ultimate success, 
that at the October session of the Virginia legislature for that year, he applied 
for and obtained an act, guarant5ring to him the exclusive use of his invention 
in navigating the waters of that state. About the same time also he communi- 
cated his invention to General Washington. In January, 1785, he obtained a 
patent from the general assembly of Maryland for navigating their waters. 
Through the whole of this year, Rumsey was deeply engaged in building a boat, 
and procuring, improving, adapting, and testing the several parts of his machin- 
ery ; but, from obvious causes, was not ready for a public trial until the year fol- 
lowing, (1786,) which, all things considered, was eminently successful. In this 
trial he succeeded in propelling his boat by steam alone against the current of the 
Potomac, near Shepherdstown, at the rate of four orfve miles an hour ! 

" Rumsey's boat was about fifty feet in length, and, as observed in the text, was 
propelled by a pump worked by a steam engine, which forced a quantity of water 
up through the keel ; the valve was then shut by the return of the stroke, which 
at the same time forced the water through a channel or pipe, a few inches square 
(lying above or parallel to the kelson,) out at the stern under the rudder, which 
had a less depth than usual, to permit the exit of the water. The impetus of 
this water, forced through the square channel against the exterior water, acted 
as an impelling power upon the vessel. The reaction of the effluent water pro- 
pelled her at the rate above mentioned, when loaded with three tons in addition 
to the weight of her engine of about a third of a ton. The boiler was quite a 
curiosity, holding no more than five gallons of water, and needing only a pint at 
a time. The whole machinery did not occupy a space greater than that required 
for four barrels of flour. The fuel consumed was not more than from four to six 
bushels of coals in twelVe hours. Rumsey's other project was to apply the 
power of a steam engine to long poles, which were to reach the bottom of the 
river, and by that means to push a boat against a rapid current. 

" After the experiment above alluded to, Rumsey being under the strong con- 
viction that skilful workmen and perfect machinery were alone wanting to the 
most perfect success, and sensible that such could not be procured in America, 
resolved to go to England. With slender means of his own, and aided, or rather 
mocked, by some timid and unsteady patronage, he there resumed with untiring 
energy Ms great undertaking. He proceeded to procure patents of the British 
government for steam navigation : these patents bear date in the beginning of 
the year 1788. Several of his inventions, in one modified form or another, are 
now in general use ; as, for instance, the cylindrical boiler, so superior to the 
old tub or still boilers, in the presentation of fire surface, and capacity for hold- 
ing highly rarefied steam, is described, both single and combined, in his specifi- 
cations, and is identical in principle with the tub boiler which he used in his 
Potomac experiment. 

" Difiiculties and embarrassments of a pecuniary nature, and such as invari- 
ably obstruct the progress of a new invention, attended him in England. He 
was often compelled to abandon temporarily his main object, and turn his atten- 
tion to something else, in order to raise means to resume it. He undertook with 
the same power, but by its more judicious application, to produce higher results 
in several waterworks, in all which he succeeded, realizing thereby some reputa- 
tion as well as funds to apply to his favorite project. 



JOHN FITCH. 29 

Fitch, under his state patents, of which the author of this was one 
of the principal shareholders, conceiving that the patent of Fitch 
was not for any peculiar mode of applying the steam to navigation, 
but that it extended to all known modes of propeUing boats and 
vessels, contested before the assembly of Pennsylvania, and also 
before the assembly of Delaware, the mode proposed by Mr. Rum- 
sey, and contended that the mode he proposed, viz., by drawing 
up the water into a tube, and forcing the same water out of the 
stern of the vessel or boat, which was derived from Dr. Franklin's 
woz'ks, (the doctor being one of the company,) was a mode the 
company had a right to, for the plan was originally published in 
Latin, about fifty years before, in the works of Bernouilli the 
younger. Two of Fitch's company and I appeared without 
counsel, and pleaded our own cause in the assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania, and after a week's patient hearing against the most learned 
counsel of Pennsylvania, we obtained a decision in our favor, and 
afterwards also in Delaware. We believed and contended that 
our claim of propelling boats by steam included all the modes of 
propelling vessels and boats then known, and that the patent was 
for the application of steam as an agent to the propelling powers : 
and the decisions of the legislatures were in favor of this construc- 
tion, as Mr. Rumsey's company (of which the late Messrs. Bing- 
ham, Myers, Fisher, and many other worthy gentlemen, were 
members,) were excluded from the right of using steamboats on 
any principle." 

" At another time, in order to avoid a London prison, and the delay, if not the 
defeat of all his high hopes, he was compelled to transfer, at what he considered 
a ruinous sacrifice, a large interest in his inventions, — a contract which entan- 
gled and embarrassed him through life. Still, however, he struggled on, undis- 
mayed, and had constructed a boat of about one hundred tons burden, and pushed 
forward his macliinery so near to the point of completion, as to be able to indi- 
cate a day not very distant for a public exhibition, when his sudden death occurred 
from apoplexy, while discussing the principle of one of his inventions before a 
philosophical society of London. With his life the whole project ceased, — there 
v/as no one present to administer, — no one present able to carry it out. Few 
would have been willing to incur the ridicule of attempting to complete it. All 
that he left, — his very boat and machinery ,-^barely sufficed to satisfy anxious 
and greedy creditors." 

A sharp controversy at one time existed between Rumsey and Fitch, and their 
mutual friends, relating to the originality of their respective inventions. With- 
out deciding upon the merits of either, both certainly claim the highest admira- 
tion for their perseverance, as well as sympathy for their misfortunes. 

For the above facts, see Stuart's Anecdotes of the Steam Engine, and the 
speech of Mr. Rumsey of Kentucky before the house of representatives, on the 
occasion of offering the following resolution, afterwards unanimously passed, 
Feb. 9, 1839 : — " Resolved by the senate and house of representatives, &c. &c.. 
That the President be and he is hereby requested to present to James Rumsey, 
jun., the son and only surviving child of James Rumsey, deceased, a suitable 
gold medal, commemorative of his father's services and high agency in giving to 
the world the benefits of the steamboat." 



£0 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

" We worked incessantly at the boat* to bi'ing it to perfection, 
Lad under the disadvantages of never having seen a steam engine 
on the principles contemplated, of not having a single engineer 
in our company or pay, — we made engineers of common black- 
smiths ; and after expending many thousand dollars, the boat did 
not exceed three miles an hour. Finding great unwillingness in 
many to proceed, I proposed to the company to give up to any 
one, the one-half of my shares, who would, at his own expense, 
make a boat go at the rate of eight miles an hour, in dead water, 
in eighteen months, or forfeit all the expenditures on failing ; or I 
would engage with any others to accept these terms. Each re- 
linquished one half of his shares, by making the forty shares eighty, 
and holding only as many of the new shares as he held of the old 
ones, and then subscribed as far as he thought proper to enter on 
the terms : by which many relinquished one half. I was among 
the number, and in less than twelve months we were ready for 
the experiment. 

" The day was appointed, and the experiment made in the fol- 
lowing manner: — A mile was measured in Front (Water) street, 
Philadelphia, and the bounds projected at right angles, as exactly 
as could be to the wharf, wliere a flag was placed at each end, 
and also a stop watch. The boat was ordered under way at dead 
water, or when the tide was found to be without movement ; as 
the boat passed one flag, it struck, and at the same instant the 
watches were set ofi"; as the boat reached the other flag it wat 
also struck, and the watches instantly stopped. Every precaution 
was taken before witnesses : the time was shown to all ; the ex- 
periment declared to be fairly made, and the boat was found to go 
at the rate of eight miles an how, or one mile in seven minutes 

* Description of FitcWs Steamboat. — The following account of Mr. Fitch's boat 
is given by the unfortunate inventor in the Columbian (Philadelphia) Magazine, 
vol. i. for December, 1786, of which the engraving annexed will give some idea. 
" The cyUnder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal force at 
each end. The mode by which we obtain a vacuum is, it is believed, entirely 
new, as is also the method of letting the water into it and throwing it ofi against 
the atmosphere without any friction. It is expected that the cylinder, which is 
of twelve inches diameter, will move a clear force of eleven or twelve cwt. after 
the frictions are deducted ; this force is to be directed against a wheel eighteen 
inches in diameter. The piston is to move about three feet, and each vibration 
of it gives the axis about forty evolutions. Each evolution of the axis moves 
twelve oars or paddles five and a half feet ; they work perpendicularly, and are 
represented by the strokes of a paddle of a canoe. As six of the paddles are 
raised from the water, six more are entered, and the two sets of paddles make 
their strokes of about eleven feet in each evolution. The crank of the axis acts 
upon the paddles, about one third of their length froni their lower ends, on 
which part of the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. The engine is 
placed in the bottom of the boat, about one third from the stern, and both the 
action and reaction turn the wheel the same way." 



JOHN FITCH. 33 

and a half; on which the shares were signed over with great 
satisfaction by the i*est of the company. It afterwards went eighty 
miles in a day ! 

" The governor and council of Pennsylvania were so highly 
gi-atified with our labors, that without their intentions being pre- 
viously knovm to us, Governor Mifflin, attended by the council in 
procession, presented to the company, and placed in the boat, a 
superb silk flag, prepared expressly, and containing the arms of 
Pennsylvania ; and this flag we possessed till Mr. Fitch was sent 
to France by the company, at the I'equest of Aaron Vail, Esq., 
our consul at L'Orient, who, being one of the company, was soK- 
citous to have steamboats built in France. John Fitch took the 
flag, unknown to the company, and presented it to the national 
convention. Mr. Vail, finding all the workmen put in requisition, 
and that none could be obtained to build the boats, paid the ex- 
penses of Mr. Fitch, who returned to the United States ; and Mr. 
Vail afterwards subjected to the examination of Mr. Fulton, when 
in France, the papers and designs of the steamboat appertaining 
to the company." 

" As Dr. Thornton has stated in liis accoimt, as quoted above, 
the company refused to advance more funds. This they did, after 
imerfering with his views, and attemptmg expensive plans of im- 
provement, which failed of success ; and being probably influenced 
by that unceasing ridicule cast upon the project, they one by one 
gradually withdrew from the concern. The conviction of Fitch, 
however, respecting the power of steam, continued firm ; and ui 
June, 1792, when the boat was laid up, he addressed a letter on 
the subject to Mr. Rittenhouse, one of the shareholders, hi which 
he says, ' it would be much easier to carry a first-rate man-of-war 
by steam than a boat, as we ^vould not be cramped for room, nor 
would the weight of machinery be felt. This, sir, will be the mode 
of crossing the Atlantic in time, whether I bring it to perfection or 
not, for packets and armed vessels. I mean to make use of the 
wind when we have it, and in a calm to pursue the voyage at the 
rate of seven or eight miles an hour.' He further suggests the 
use of steam to conquer the cruisers of Barbaiy, by which several 
American vessels had then been lately captured. He says, * a 
six-foot cylinder could discharge a column of water from the round 
top foity or fifty yards, and throw a man off his feet, and wet their 
arms and ammunition.' He complains of his poverty; and to 
raise funds, he urges Mr. Rittenhouse to purchase his lands in 
Kentucky, that he ' might have the honor of enabhng him to com- 
piete the great undertaking.' 

" Fitch's enthusiasm on the subject never dimmished one mo- 



34 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

ment, and steam was the constant theme of his discourse whenever 
he could prevail upon any one to listen to him. Upon one occa 
sion he called upon a smith who had worked at his boat, and after 
dwelling some time upon his favorite topic, concluded with these 
prophetic words : ' Well, gentlemen, although I shall not live to 
see the time, you will, when steamboats will be preferred to all 
other means of conveyance, and especially for passengers ; and 
they will be particularly useful in the navigation of the river Mis- 
sissippi.' He then retired, when a person present observed, in a 
tone of deep sympathy, ^ Poor fellow! what a pity he is crazy!' 
The predictions of the benefits which tliis country would derive 
from steam navigation are frequently referred to in his manuscript 
left to the library company." 

On the return from his unsuccessful sojourn in Europe, Fitch 
landed at Boston in a very needy and destitute condition. A re- 
lation. Colonel George King, of Sharon, Connecticut, hearing of his 
friendless situation, sent for and generously offered him a home 
under his own roof. Here he remained two or three years, and 
some time in 1796 went out to Kentucky, to obtain possession of 
some lands which he had purchased while surveying there. For 
this purpose, writs of ejectment were issued against those illegally 
occupying them ; and just as a better day was dawning upon the 
career of this most singularly unfortunate man, he was seized 
with a fever of the country, and died. 

" In conformity to his wishes, he was buried on the shores of the 
Ohio, that he might repose ' loJiere the song of ilie boatmen would 
enliven the stillness of his resting place, and the music of the steam 
engine sooth his spirit /' What an idea ! — ^yet how natural to the 
mind of an ardent projector, who had been so long devoted to one 
darling object, which it was not his destiny to accomplish ! — and 
Low touching is the sentiment found in his journal : — ' The day 
will come when some more powerful man will get fame and riches 
from my invention, but nobody will believe that poor John Fitch 
can do any thing worthy of attention l""^ 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



Dirth.— Intended for the church. — Attends a common school. — Assists Ids father 
in the tallow chandlery. — Dislikes the business. — Tries the cutler's trade. — 
Becomes an apprentice in his brother's printing-office. — Evinces great fond- 
ness for books. — Is allowed access to a gentleman's library. — Turns poet, and 
hawks his productions through the streets. — Rising vanity checked. — His 
friend CoUins, and their discussions. — Meets with an odd volume of the Spec- 
tator. — Improvement in composition. — Economy, and new system of diet. — 
Masters arithmetic, and studies navigation. — Secretly contributes to his bro- 
ther's newspaper — A discovery. — Is viewed as a person of some consequence. 
— Quarrels with his brother. — First error in Ufe. — Privately leaves for New 
York. — Destitute condition. — Proceeds to Philadelphia. — Graphic description. 
— Enters into the printing-office of Keimer. — Makes a distinguished acquaint 
ance. — Dines with Governor Keith. — Informs his parents of his situation. — 
Goes out to England under the supposed patronage of the governor. — Disap- 
pointment and imposition. — Thrown upon his own resources, and works in 
London as a journeyman printer. — Writes a pamphlet. — Attracts the attention 
of literary men. — Frugality and temperance. — Sets an example. — A friend re 
turning to, Philadelphia, is engaged as his clerk. — Voyage. — Forms a plan foi 
future conduct. — Aarrival at Philadelphia. — Death of his friend. — Once more 
thro-wn upon the world. — Enters again into Keimer's service. — Franklin and 
Meredith set up a printing-office. — ^Industry. — Rising credit. — Thinks of estab- 
lishing a new paper. — Treachery. — Its defeat. — Purchases Keimer's paper.— 
Growing popularity. — Buys out his partner. — Opens a stationer's shop. — Mar 
ries. — Establishes the first American circulating library. — Pubhshes " Pool 
Richard's Almanac." — Studies languages. — Chosen clerk of the general as- 
sembly. — Appointed deputy postmaster. — Becomes interested in public affairs, 
— Suggests various public improvements. — Made an alderman. — Elected bur- 
gess to the general assembly. — Interesting electrical discoveries. — Draws down 
lightning from the clouds. — Increasing honors. — Becomes an eminent states- 
man. — Signs the declaration of independence. — Sent ambassador to the court 
of France. — Chosen president of the supreme executive council. — Character. — 
Death. — Anecdotes. 

The name we are now to mention is perhaps the most distin- 
guished to be found in the annals of self-education. Of all those, 
at least, who, by their own efforts, and without any usurpation of 
the rights of others, have raised themselves to a high place in 
society, there is no one, as has been remarked, the close of whose 
history presents so great a contrast to its commencement as that 
of Benjajiin Frankxijn'. It fortunately happens, too, in his case, 
that we are in possession of abundant information as to the methods 
by which he contrived to surmount the many disadvantages of his 
original condition ; to raise himself from the lowest poverty and 
obscurity to affluence and distinction ; and, above all, in the ab- 
sence of instructors, and of the ordinary helps to the acquisiti(jn 



38 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

of knowledge, to enrich himself so plentifully with the treasures 
of Uterature and science, as not only to be enabled to derive from 
that source the chief happiness of his life, but to succeed in placing 
himself high among the most famous writers and philosophers of 
his time. We shall avail ourselves, as liberally as our limits wiU 
permit, of the ample details, respecting the early part of his life 
especially, that have been given to the public, in order to present 
to the reader as full and distinct an account as possible of the suc- 
cessive steps of a progress so eminently worthy of being recorded, 
both from the interesting nature of the story, and from its value as 
an example and lesson, perhaps the most instructive to be any- 
where found, for all who have to be either the architects of their 
own fortunes, or their own guides in the pursuit of knowledge. 

Franklin has himself told us the story of his early life inimitably 
well. The narrative is given in the form of a letter to his son ; 
and does not appear to have been written originally with any view 
to publication. " From the poverty and obscurity," he says, " in 
which I was born, and in which I passed my earliest years, I have 
raised myself to a state of affluence, and some degree of celebrity 
in the world. As constant good fortune has accompanied me, 
even to an advanced period of hfe, my posterity will perhaps be 
desirous of learning the means which I employed, and which, 
thanks to Providence, so well succeeded with me. They may also 
deem them fit to be imitated, should any of them find themselves 
in similar circumstances." It is not many years since this letter 
was, for the first time, given to the world by the grandson of the 
illustrious writer, only a small portion of it having previously ap- 
peared, and that merely a re-translation into English from a 
French vei'sion of the original manuscript which had been pub- 
lished at Paris. 

Frankhn was born at Boston, on the 17th of January, 1706 ; 
the youngest, with the exception of two daughters, of a family of 
seventeen children. His father, who had emigrated from England 
about twenty-four years before, followed the occupation of a soap- 
boiler and tallow-chandler, a business to which he had not been 
bred, and by which he seems with difficulty to have been able to 
support his numerous family. At first it was proposed to make 
Benjamin a clergyman ; and he was accordingly, having before 
learned to read, put to the grammar-school at eight years of age ; 
— an uncle, whose namesake he was, and who appears to have 
been an ingenious man, encouraging the project by offering to give 
him several volumes of aermons to set up with, wliich he had taken 
down, in a short-hand of his own invention, from the different 
preachers he had been in the habit of hearing. This person, who 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 39 

was now advanced in life, had been only a common silk-dyer, but 
liad been both a great reader and writer in his day, having filled 
two quarto volumes with his own manuscript poetry. What he 
was most proud of, however, was his short-hand, which he was 
very anxious that his nephew should learn. But young Franklin 
had not been quite a year at the grammar-school, when his father 
began to reflect that the expense of a college education for him 
was what he could not very well afford. He was removed, and 
placed for another year under a teacher of writing and arithmetic ; 
after which his father took him home, when he was no more than 
ten years old, to assist him in his own business. Accordingly he 
was employed, he tells us, in cutting wicks for the candles, filling 
the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going errands, and 
other drudgery of the same kind. He showed so much dislike, 
however, to this busmess, that his father, afraid he would break 
loose and go to sea, as one of his elder brothers had done, found 
it advisable, after a trial of two years, to look about for another 
occupation for him ; and taking him round to see a great many 
different sorts of tradesmen at their work, it was at last agreed 
upon that he should be bound apprentice to a cousin of his own, 
who was a cutler. But he had been only for some days on trial 
at this business, when, his father thinking the apprentice-fee which 
his cousin asked too high, he was again taken home. In this state 
of things it was finally resolved to place him with his brother 
James, who had been bred a printer, and had just returned from 
England and set up on his own account at Boston. To him, 
therefore, Benjamin was bound apprentice, when he was yet only 
in his twelfth year, on an agreement that he should remain with 
him in that capacity till he reached the age of twenty-one. 

One of the principal reasons which induced his father to deter- 
mine upon this profession for him, was the fondness he had from 
his infancy shown for reading. All the money he could get hold 
of used to be eagerly laid out in the purchase of books. His fa- 
ther's small collection consisted principally of works in controver- 
sial divinity, a subject of little interest to a reader of his age ; but, 
such as they were, he went through most of them. Fortunately 
there was also a copy of Plutarch's Lives, which he says he read 
abundantly. This, and a book by Daniel Defoe, called an Essay 
on Projects, he seems to think were the two works from which he 
derived the most advantage. His new profession of a printer, by 
procuring him the acquaintance of some booksellers' apprentices, 
enabled him considerably to extend his acquaintance with books, 
by frequently borrowing a volume in the evening, which he sat up 
reading the greater part of the night, in order that he might return 



40 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

it in the morning, lest it should be missed. But these solitary 
studies did not prevent him from soon acquiring a great proficiency 
m his business, in which he was every day becoming more useful 
to his brother. After some time, too, his access to books was 
greatly facilitated by the kindness of a liberal-minded merchant, 
who was in the habit of frequenting the printing-office, and, being 
possessed of a tolerable library, invited young Franklin, whose in- 
dustry and intelligence had attracted his" attention, to come to see 
It ; after which he allowed him to borrow from it such volumes as 
he wished to read. 

Our young student was now to distinguish himself in a new 
character. The perusal of the works of others suggested to him 
the idea of trying his own talent at composition ; and his firs< 
attempts in this way were a few pieces of poetry. Verse, it mat 
be observed, is generally the earliest sort of composition attempte'a 
either by nations or individuals, and for the same reasons in both 
cases— namely, first, because poetry has pecuhar charms for the 
unripe understanding ; and, secondly, because people at first find 
it difficult to conceive what composition is at all, independently of 
such measured cadences and other regularities as constitute verse. 
Franklin's poetical fit, however, did not last long. Having been 
induced by his brother to write two ballads, he was sent to sell 
them through the streets ; and one of them, at least, being on a 
subject which had just made a good deal of noise in the place, sold, 
as he tells us, prodigiously. But his father, who, without much 
hteraiy knowledge, was a man of a remarkably sound and vigorous 
understanding, soon brought down the rising vanity of the young 
poet, by pointing out to him the many faults of his performances, 
and convincing him what wretched stufl:" they really were. Having 
been told, too, that verse-makers were generally beggars, with his 
characteristic prudence he determined to write no more ballads. 

He had an intimate acquaintance of the name of Collins, who 
was, like himself, passionately fond of books, and with whom he 
was in the habit of arguing upon such subjects as they met with in 
the course of their reading. Among other questions which they 
discussed in this way, one accidentally arose on the abilities of 
women, and the propriety of giving them a learned education. 
Collins maintained their natural unfitness for any of the severer 
studies, while Franklin took the contrary side of the question— 
« perhaps," he says, « a little for dispute sake." His antagonist 
had always the greater plenty of words ; but Franklin thought that, 
on this occasion in particular, his own arguments were rather the 
stronger ; and on their parting without setthng the point, he sat 
down, and put a summary of what he advanced m writing, which 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 41 

he copied out and sent to Colling. This gave a new form to the 
discussion, which was now carried on for some time by letters, of 
which three or four had been written on both sides, when the cor- 
respondence fell into the hands of Franldin's father. His natural 
acuteness and good sense enabled him here again to render an 
essential service to his son, by pointing out to him how far he fell 
short of his antagonist in elegance of expression, in method, and 
in perspicuity, though he had the advantage of him in correct 
spelhng and punctuation, which he evidently owed to his expe- 
rience in the printing-office. From that moment Franklin deter- 
mined to spare no pains in endeavoring to improve his style ; and 
we shall give, in his own words, the method he pursued for that 
end. 

" About this time," says he, " I met with an odd volume of the 
Spectator ; I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, 
read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought 
the writing excellent ; and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With 
that view, I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the 
sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days ; and then, 
without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, 
by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it 
had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should occur 
to me. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, dis- 
covered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I 
wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using 
them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I 
had gone on making verses ; since the continual search for words 
of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or 
of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a con- 
stant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to 
fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. There- 
fore, I took some of the tales in the Spectator, and turned them 
into verse ; and after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the 
prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my 
collection of hints into confusion ; and, after some weeks, endea- 
vored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form 
the full sentences and corhplete the subject. This was to teach 
me method in the arrangement of the thoughts. By comparing 
my work with the original, I discovered many faults, and corrected 
them ; but I sometimes had the pleasure to fancy that in certain 
particulars of small consequence I had been fortunate enough to 
improve the method or the language ; and this encouraged me ) i 
think that I might, in time, come to be a tolerable EngUsh writer, 
of which I was extremely ambitious." 



42 AMERICAN MECHANICS. I 

Even at this early age nothing could exceed the perseverance- 
and self-denial which he displayed, in pursuing his favorite object ^ 
of cultivating his mental faculties to the utmost of his power. | 
When only sixteen, he chanced to meet with a book in recom-l 
rnendation of a vegetable diet, one of the arguments at least in | 
favor of which made an immediate impression upon him — namely, j 
its greater cheapness ; and from this and other considerations, he ^ 
determined to adopt that way of living for the future. Having ji 
taken this resolution, he proposed to his brother, if he would give] 
him weekly only half what his board had hitherto cost, to board j 
himself, an offer which was immediately accepted. He presently :: 
found that by adhering to his new system of diet he could still save 5 
half what his brother allowed him. " This," says he, " was an ? 
additional fund for buying of books : but I had another advantage ', 
in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to '■. 
their meals, I remained there alone, and despatching presently my - 
light repast, (which was often no more than a biscuit, or a slice of -^ 
bread, a handful of raisins, or a tart from the pastrycook's, and a | 
glass of water,) had the rest of the time, till their return, for study ; i 
in which I made the greater progress, from that greater clearness i 
of head and quicker apprehension which generally attend temper- i 
ance in eating and drinldng." It was about this time that, by means I 
of Cocker's Arithmetic, he made himself master of that science, i 
which he had twice attempted in vain to learn while at school ; i 
Und that he also obtained some acquaintance with the elements of > 
geometry, by the perusal of a Treatise on Navigation. He men- j 
tions, likewise, among the works which he now read, Locke on ! 
the Human Understanding, and the Port-Royal Art of Thinking, j 
together with two little sketches on the arts of Logic and Rhetoric, ; 
which he found at the end of an English Grammar, and which ; 
initiated him in the Soci'atic mode of disputation, or that way of ■ 
arguing by which an antagonist, by being questioned, is imper- ! 
ceptibly drawn into admissions which are afterwards dexterously ] 
turned against him. Of this method of reasoning he became, he '■ 
tells us, excessively fond, finding it very safe for himself and very ' 
embarrassing for those against whom he used it ; but he after- : 
wards abandoned it, apparently from a feeling that it gave advan- ! 
tages rather to cunnmg than to truth, and was better adapted to j 
gain victories in conversation, than either to convince or to ' 
inform. ' 

A few years before this his brother had begun to publish a ' 
newspaper, the second that had appeared in America. This \ 
brought most of the literary people of Boston occasionally to the i 
printing-office ; and young Franklin often heard them conversing ' 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 43 

about the articles that appeared in the newspaper, and the appro- 
bation which particular ones received. At last, inflamed with the 
ambition of sharing in this sort of fame, he resolved to try how a 
communication of his own would succeed. Having written his 
paper, therefore, in a disguised hand, he put it at night under the 
door of the printing-office, where it was found in the morning, and 
submitted to the consideration of the critics, when they met as 
usual. " They read it," says he ; " commented on it in my hear- 
ing ; and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their 
approbation ; and that in their different guesses at the author, none 
were named but men of some character among us for learning and 
mgenuit}'." " I suppose," he adds, " that I was rather lucky in 
my judges, and that they were not really so very good as I then 
beUeved them to be." Encouraged, however, by the success of 
this attempt, he sent several other pieces to the press in the same 
way, keeping his secret, till, as he expresses it, all his fund of 
sense for such performances was exlaausted. He then discovered 
himself, and immediately found that he began to be looked upon 
as a person of some consequence by his brother's literary ac- 
quaintances. 

This newspaper soon after afforded him, very unexpectedly, an 
opportunity of extricating himself from his indenture to his brother, 
who had all along treated him with great harshness, and to whom 
his rising hteraiy reputation only made him more an object of envy 
and disKke. An article which they had admitted having offended the 
local government, his brother, as proprietor of the paper, was not 
only sentenced to a month's imprisonment, but prohibited from any 
longer continuing to print the offensive journal. In these circum- 
stances, it was determined that it should appear for the future in 
the name of Benjamin, who had managed it during his brother's 
confinement ; and in order to prevent it being alleged that the 
former proprietor was only screening himself behind one of his 
apprentices, the indenture by wliich the latter was bound was 
given up to him ; he at the same time, in order to secure to his 
brother the benefit of his services, signing new indentures for the 
remainder of his time, which were to be kept private. " A veiy 
flimsy scheme it was," says Franklin ; " however, it was imme- 
diately executed ; and the paper was printed accordingly under my 
name for several months. At length a fresh difference arising 
between my brother and me, 1 took upon me to assert my freedom, 
presuming that he would not venture to produce the new indenture. 
It was not fair in me to take this advantage ; and this I therefore 
reckon one of the first errata of my life ; but the unfairness of it 
wei^jKsd litle with me, when under the impressions of resentment 



44 AMERICAN MECHANICS. ' 

for the blows Ids passion too often urged him to bestow upoa me, 
though he was otherwise not an ill-natured man : perhaps I was i 
too saucy and provoking." I 

Finding, however, that his brother, in consequence of this ex- ' 
ploit, had taken care to give him such a character to all those of ^ 
his own profession in Boston, that nobody would employ him there, t. 
he now resolved to make his way to New York, the nearest place ' 
where there was a printer ; and accordingly, after selling his booKS ii 
to raise a Uttle money, he embarked on board a vessel for that i! 
city, without communicating his intention to his friends, who he f 
knew would oppose it. In three days he found himself at the end ^ 
of his voyage, near three hundi-ed miles from his home, at the age I 
of seventeen, without the least recommendation, as he tells us, or 5 
knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money s 
in his pocket. Worst of all, upon applying to the only printer jj 
likely to give him any employment, he foimd that this person had * 
nothing for him to do, and that the only way in which he could i 
serve him was by recommending him to proceed to Philadelplaia, 
a hundred miles farther, where he had a son, who, he believed, 
might employ him. We are unable, however, to follow our run- 
away through all the incidents of this journey, some of which were 
disastrous enough ; but we cannot refrain from relating the follow- 
ing anecdote : — Being troubled, wherever he stopped, by the inqui- 
sitiveness and curiosity of the people, he was induced to try an 
expedient for silencing similar inquiries. Accordingly, at the next 
place, as soon as supper was laid, he called his landlord, when the 
following dialogue took place between them. " Pray, are you 
married ?" " i es." " What family have you got ?" " Two 
sons and three daughters." " How many servants ?" " Two, 
and an hostler." " Have you any objection to my seeing them ?" 
" None, I guess." " Then be so good as to desire them all to 
step here." This was done ; and the whole being assembled, 
Franklin thus addressed them : " Good people, my name is Benja^ 
min Franklin — I am ly trade a printer — I came from Boston, and 
ain going to Philadelphia to seek employment — I am in rather 
humble circumstances, and quite indifferent to news of any kind 
unconnected with printing. This is all I know of myself, and all 
I can possibly inform you ; and now, I hope you will allow me to 
take my supper in quiet." 

The following is Franklin's most graphic description of his first 
appearance in Philadelphia. After concluding the account of his 
voyage, " I have been the more particular," says he, " in this de- 
scription of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that 
city, that you may, in your mind, compare such unlikely beginnings 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 45 

with the figure I have since made there. I was in my w.orking 
dress, my best clothes coming round by sea. I was dirty, from 
my being so long in the boat ; my pockets were stuffed out with 
shirts and stockings ; and I knew no one, nor where to look for 
lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, 
I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted in a 
single dollar, and about a shilUng in copper coin, which I gave to 
the boatmen for my passage. At first they refused it, on account 
of my having rowed ; but I insisted on their taking it. Man is 
sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he 
has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but little. 
I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near 
Market-street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made 
a meal of dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went 
immediately to the baker's he directed me to. I asked for bis- 
cuits, meaning such as we had at Boston ; that sort, it seems, was 
not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for a threepenny loaf, 
and was told they had none. Not knowing the different prices, 
nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give 
me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, 
three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took 
it ; and having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under 
each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street, 
as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future 
wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought 
I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. 
Then I turned and went down Chesnut-street and part of Walnut, 
street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself 
again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I 
went for a draught of the river water ; and being filled with one 
of my rolls,- gave the other two to a woman and her child that 
came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go 
farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by 
this time had many clean dressed people in it, who were all walk- 
ing the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the 
great meeting-house of the Quakers, near the market. I sat down 
among them ; and after looking round a while, and hearing noth- 
ing said, being very drowsy, through labor and want of rest the 
preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting 
broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This, 
therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Phila- 
delphia." 

Refreshed by his brief sojourn in this cheap place of repose, 
he then set out in quest of a lodging for the night. Next morning 



46 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

he foui^ the person to whom he had been directed, who was not, 
however, able to give him any employment ; but upon applying to 
another printer in the place, of the name of Keimer, he was a little 
more fortunate, being set by him, in the first instance, to put an 
old press to rights, and afterwards taken into regular work. He 
had been some months at Philadelphia, his relations in Boston 
knowing nothing of what had become of him, when a brother-in- 
law, who was the master of a trading sloop, happening to hear of 
him in one of his voyages, wrote to him in very earnest terms to 
entreat him to return home. The letter which he sent in reply 
to this application reaching his brother-in-law when he chanced to 
be in company with Sir WilHam Keith, the governor of the pro- 
vince, it was shown to that gentleman, who expressed considerable 
surprise on being told the age of the writer ; and immediately 
said that he appeared to be a young man of promising parts, and 
that if he would set up on his own account in Philadelphia, where 
the printers were wretched ones, he had no doubt he would suc- 
ceed ; for his part he would procure him the public business, and 
do him every service in his power. Some time after this, Frank- 
lin, who knew nothing of what had taken place, was one day at 
work along with his master near the window, when " we saw," 
says he, " the governor and another gentleman, (who proved to 
be Colonel French, of Newcastle, in the province of Delaware,) 
finely dressed, come directly across the street to our house, and 
heard them at the door. Keimer ran down immediately, thinking 
it a visit to him : but the governor inquired for me, came up, and 
with a condescension and politeness I had been quite unused to, 
made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, 
blamed me kindly for not having made myself known to him when 
I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to 
the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French, to taste, as 
he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and 
Keimer stared with astonishment." 

The reader already perceives that Sir William must have been 
rather an odd sort of person ; and this becomes still more apparent 
in the sequel of the story. Having got his young protege to the 
tavern, he proposed to him, over their wine, that he should, as 
soon as possible, set up in Philadelphia as a master printer, only 
continuing to work with Keimer till an opportunity should offer of 
a passage to Boston, when he would return home, to arrange the 
matter with his father, who, the governor had no doubt, would, 
upon a letter from him, at once advance his son the necessary 
funds for commencing business. Accordingly, Franklin set out 
for Boston by the first vessel that sailed ; and, ipon his arrival, 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 47 

was very kindly received by all his family, except his brother, and 
surprised his father not a little by presenting him with the governor's 
letter. For some time his father said little or nothing on the sub- 
ject, merely remarking, that Sir William must be a person of small 
discretion, to think of setting a youth up in business who wanted 
three years to arrive at man's estate. But at last he decidedly re- 
fused to have any thing to do with the arrangement ; and Franklin 
returned to his patron to tell him of his bad success, going this 
time, however, with the consent and blessing of his parents, who 
finding how industrious he had been while in Philadelphia, were 
willing that he should continue there. When Franklin presented 
himself to Sir William with his father's answer to the letter he had 
been honored with from that functionary, the governor observed that 
he was too prudent : " but since he will not set you up," added he, 
" I will do it myself," It was finally agreed that Franklin should 
proceed in person to England, to purchase types and other necessary 
articles, for which the governor was to give him letters of credit to 
the extent of one hundred pounds. 

After repeated applications to the governor for the promised 
letters of credit, Franklin was at last sent on board the vessel for Eng- 
land, which was just on the point of sailing, with an assurance that 
Colonel French should be sent to him with the letters immediately. 
That gentleman soon after made his appearance, bearing a packet 
of despatches from the governor : in this packet Franklin was in- 
formed his letters were. Accordingly, when they got into the Britsh 
channel, the captain having allowed him to search for them among 
the others, he found several addressed to his care, which he con- 
cluded of course to be those he had been promised. Upon pre- 
senting one of them, however, to a stationer to whom it was directed, 
the man having opened it, merely said, " Oh, this is from Riddlesdon 
(an attorney in Philadelphia, whom Frankhn knew to be a thorough 
knave ;) I have lately found him to be a complete rascal ;" and 
giving back the letter, turned on his heel, and proceeded to serve 
his customers. Upon this, Franklin's confidence in his patron 
began to be a little shaken ; and, after reviewing the whole affair 
in his own mind, he resolved to lay it before a very intelligent 
mercantile gentleman, who had come over from America with 
them, and with whom he had contracted an intimacy on the passage. 
This friend very soon put an end to his doubts. " He let me," 
says Frankhn, " into Keith's character ; told me there was not 
the least probability that he had written any letters for me ; that 
no one who knew him had the smallest dependence on him ; and 
he laughed at the idea of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, 
having, as he said, no credit to give." 



18 AMERICAN MECHANICS, / 

Thus thrown once more on his own means, our young adven- 
turer found there was no resource for him but to endeavor to procure 
some employment at his trade in London. Accordingly, having 
applied to a Mr. Palmer, a printer of eminence in Bartholomew- 
close, his services were accepted, and he remained there for nearly 
a year. During this time, although he was led into a good deal of 
idleness by the example of a friend, somewhat older than himself, 
he by no means forgot his old habits of reading and study. Having 
been employed in printing a second edition of WoUaston's Rehgion 
of Nature, his perusal of the work induced him to compose and 
publish a small pamphlet in refutation of some of the author's 
positions, which, he tells us, he did not afterwards look back upon 
as altogether a wise proceeding. He employed the greater part 
of his leisure more profitably in reading a great many works, which 
(circulating libraries, he remarks, not being then in use) he bor- 
rowed, on certain terms that were agreed upon between them, from 
a bookseller whose shop was next door to his lodgings in Little 
Britain, and who had an immense collection of second-hand books. 
His pamphlet, however, was the means of making him known to a 
few of the literary characters then in London, among the rest to 
the noted Dr. Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees ; and to 
Dr. Pemberton, Sir Isaac Newton's friend, who promised to give 
him an opportunity, some time or other, of seeing that great man : 
but this, he says, never happened. He also became acquainted 
about the same time with the famous collector and naturahst. Sir 
Hans Sloane, the Founder of the British Museum, who had heard 
of some curiosities which Franklin had brought over from America; 
among these was a purse made of asbestos, which he purchased from 
him. 

While with Mr. Palmer, and afterwards with Mr. Watts, near 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, he gave very striking evidence of those habits 
of temperance, self-command, industry, and frugality, which distin- 
guished him through after life, and were undoubtedly the source 
of much of the success that attended his persevering efforts to raise 
himself from the humble condition in which he passed his earlier 
years. While Mr. Watts's other workmen spent a great part of 
every week's wages on beer, he drank only water, and found him- 
self a good deal stronger, as well as much more clear headed, on 
his hglift beverage, than they on their strong potations. " From 
my example," says he, " a great many of them left off their mud- 
dling breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, finding they could with 
me be supplied from a neighboring house with a large porringer of 
hot water-gruel, sprinlded with pepper, crumbled with bread, and 
and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz, — ^three 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 49 

half-pence. This was a more comfortable, as well as a cheaper 
breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued 
sotting vnth their beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of 
credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get 
beer, — their light, as they phrased it, being out. I watched the 
pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged 
for them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on 
their accounts. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good 
riggite, that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence 
in the society. My constant attendance (I never making a St. 
Monday) recommended me to the master ; and my uncommon 
quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon worlcs of 
despatch, which are generally better paid ; so I went on now very 
agreeably." 

He spent about eighteen months altogether in London, during 
most part of which time he worked hard, he says, at his business, 
and spent but httle upon himself except in seeing plays, and in 
books. At last his friend Mr. Denham, the gentleman with whom, 
as we mentioned before, he had got acquainted on his voyage to 
England, informed him he was going to return to Philadelphia to 
open a store, or mercantile estabhshment, there, and offered him 
the situation of his clerk at a salary of fifty pounds. The money 
was less than he was now making as a compositor ; but he longed 
to see his native countiy again, and accepted the proposal. Ac- 
cordingly they set sail together ; and, after a long voyage, arrived 
in Philadelphia on the 11th of October, 1726. Franklin was at 
this time only in his twenty-first year ; and he mentions having 
formed, and committed to writing, while at sea, a plan for regulating 
the future conduct of his life. This unfortunately has been lost ; 
but he tells us himself, that although conceived and determined 
upon when he was so young, it had yet " been pretty faithfully 
adhered to quite through to old age." 

Mr. Denham had only begun business for a few months when 
he died ; and Franklin was once more left upon the world. He 
now engaged again with his old master, Keimer, the printer, who 
had got a better house, and plenty of new types, though he was 
stm as ignorant of his business as he was at the time of Franklin's 
former connection with him. While in this situation Franklin got 
acquainted with several persons, hke himself, fond of literary pur- 
suits ; and as the men never worked on Saturday, that being 
Keimer's self-appointed Sabbath, he had the whole day for reading.* 

* Keimer had peculiar notions upon religious observances, and amongst other 
things, fancied it a Christian duty to observe the Sabbath on the last day of the 
week. 



50 AMERICAN MECHANICS 

He also showed his ingenuity, and the fertility of his resources, on 
various occasions. They wanted some new types, which, there 
being no letter-foundry in America, were only to be procured from 
England ; but Franklin, having seen types cast in London, though he 
had paid no particular attention to the process, contrived a mould, 
made use of the letters they had as punches, struck the matrices 
in lead, and thus supplied, as he tells us, in a pretty tolerable way, 
all deficiencies. "I also," he adds, "engraved several things, on 
occasion ; made the ink ; I was warehouseman ; and, in short, 
quite n, factotum." 

He did not, however, remain long with Keimer, who had engaged . 
him only that he might have his other workmen taught through 
his means ; and, accordingly, when this object was in some sort 
attained, contrived to pick a quarrel with him, which produced an 
immediate separation. He then entered into an agreement with 
one of his fellow-workmen, of the name of Meredith, whose friends 
were possessed of money, to begin business in Philadelphia in compa- 
ny with him, the understanding being that Franklin's skill should be 
placed against the capital to be supplied by Meredith. While he and 
his friend, however, were secretly preparing to put their plan in exe- 
cution, he was induced to return for a few months to Keimer, on his 
earnest invitation, to enable him to perform a contract for the 
printing of some paper money for the State of New Jersey, which 
required a variety of cuts and types that nobody else in the place 
could supply ; and the two having gone together to Burlington to 
superintend this business, Franklin was fortunate enough, during 
the three months he remained in that city, to acquire, by his 
agreeable manners and intelligent conversation, the friendship of 
several of the principal inhabitants, with whom his employment 
brought him into connection. Among these he mentions particu. 
larly Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. " He was," says Frank- 
lin, " a shrewd, sagacious, old man, who told me that he began for 
himself, when young, by wheeling clay for the brickmakers, learned 
to write after he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors, who 
taught him surveying, and he had now by hi^ industry acquired a 
good estate ; and, said he, I foresee that yoq' will soon work this 
man (Keimer) out of his business, and make a fortune in it at 
Philadelphia. He had then not the least intimation of my intention 
to set up there or any where." 

Soon after he returned to Philadelphia, the types that had been 
sent for from London arrived ; and, settling with Keimer, he and 
his partner took a house, and commenced business. " We had 
scarce opened our letters," says he, " and put our press in order, 
befoi'e George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a coun- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 51 

tryman to us, whom he had met in the street, inquiring for a 
printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of parti- 
culars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five 
sliiUings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me 
more pleasure than any crown I have since earned ; and, from the 
gratitude I felt towards House, has made me often more ready 
than perhaps I otherwise should have been, to assist young begin- 
ners." He had, in the autumn of the preceding year, suggested 
to a number of his acquaintances a scheme for forming themselves 
into a club for mutual improvement ; and they had accordingly 
been in the habit of meeting every Friday evening, under the name 
of the Junto. All the members of this association exerted them- 
selves in procuring business for him ; and one of them, named 
Breinthal, obtained from the Quakers the printing of forty sheets 
of a history of that sect of religionists, then preparing at the ex- 
pense of the body. " Upon these," says Franklin, " we worked 
exceeding hard, for the price was low. It was a folio. I com- 
posed a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off* at press. It was 
often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished 
my distribution for the next day's work : for the little jobs sent in 
by our other friends, now and then, put us back. But so deter- 
mined was I to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one 
night, when, having imposed my forms, I thought my day's work 
over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages (the 
half of the day's work) reduced to pi, I immediately distributed 
and composed it over again before I went to bed ; and this Indus- 
try, visible to our neighbors, began to give us character and credit." 
The consequence was that business, and even offers of credit, 
came to them from all hands. 

They soon found themselves in a condition to think of establish, 
ing a newspaper ; but Franklin having inadvertently mentioned 
this scheme to a person who came to him wanting employment, 
that individual carried the secret to their old master, Keimer, with 
whom he, as well as themselves, had formerly worked ; and he 
immediately determined to anticipate them by issuing proposals 
for a paper of his own. The manner in which Franklin met and 
defeated this treacheiy is exceedingly characteristic. There was 
another paper published in the place, which had been in existence 
for some years ; but it was altogether a wretched affair, and owed 
what success it had merely to the absence of all competition. For 
this print, however, Franklin, not being able to commence his own 
paper immediately, in conjunction with a friend, set about writing 
a series of amusing communications under the title of the Busy 
Body, which the publisher printed, of course, very gladly. " By 



52 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

this means," says he, " the attention of the public was fixed on 
that paper ; and Keimer's proposals, whicli we burlesqued and 
ridiculed, were disregarded. He began his paper, however ; and 
before cariying it on three-quarters of a year, with at most only 
ninety subscribers, he offered it me for a trifle ; and I, having 
been ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly, 
and it proved in a few years extremely profitable to me." The 
paper, indeed, had no sooner got into Franklin's hands than its 
success equalled his most sanguine expectations. Some observa- 
tions which he wrote and printed in it on a colonial subject, then 
much talked of, excited so much attention among the leading 
people of the place, that it obtained the proprietors many friends 
in the house of assembly, and they were, on the first opportunity, 
appointed printers to the house. Fortunately, too, certain events 
occurred about this time which ended in the dissolution of Frank- 
lin's connection with Meredith, who was an idle, drunken fellow, 
and had all along been a mere encumbrance upon the concern. 
His father failing to advance the capital which had been agreed 
upon, when payment was demanded at the usual time by their 
paper merchant and other creditors, he proposed to Franklin to 
relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in his hands, if the 
latter would take upon him the debts of the company, return to his 
father what he had advanced on their commencing business, pay 
his little personal debts, and give him thirty pounds and a new 
saddle. By the kindness of two friends, who, unknown to each 
other, came forward unasked to tender their assistance, Franklin 
was enabled to accept of this proposal ; and thus, about the year 
1729, when he was yet only in the twenty-fourth year of his age, 
he found himself, after all his disappointments and vicissitudes, 
with nothing, indeed, to depend upon but his own skill and Indus- 
try for gaining a livelihood, and for extricating himself from debt, 
but yet in one sense fairly established in life, and with at least a 
prospect of well-doing before him. 

Having followed his course thus far with so minute an observ- 
ance of the several steps by which he arrived at the point to which 
we have now brought him, we shall not attempt to pursue the re- 
mainder of his career with the same particularity. His subse- 
quent efforts in the pursuit of fortune and independence were, as 
is well known, eminently successful ; and we find in his whole 
history, even to its close, a display of the same spirit of intelli- 
gence and love of knowledge, and the same active, self-denying, 
and intrepid virtues, which so greatly distinguished its commence- 
ment. The publication of a pamphlet, soon after Meredith had 
left him, in recommendation of a paper currency, a subject then 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 63 

much debated in the province, obtained him such popularity, that 
he was employed by the government in printing the notes after 
they had resolved upon issuing them. Other profitable business 
of the same kind succeeded. He then opened a stationer's shop, 
began gradually to pay off his debts, and soon after married. By 
this time his old rival, Keimer, had gone to ruin ; and he was 
(with the exception of an old man, who was rich, and did not care 
about business,) the only printer in the place. We now find him 
taking a leading part as a citizen. He estabhshed a circulating 
library, the first ever known in America, which, although it com- 
menced with only fifty subscribers, became in course of time a 
large and valuable collection, the proprietors of which were event- 
ually incorporated by royal charter. While yet in its infancy, 
however, it afforded its founder facilities of improvement of which 
he did not fail to avail himself, setting apart, as he tells us, an 
hour or two every day for study, which was the only amusement 
he allowed himself. In 1732 he first published his celebrated 
Almanac, under the name oi Richard Saunders, but which was 
commonly known by the name of Poor Richard's Almanac. He 
continued this publication annually for twenty-five years. The 
proverbs and pithy sentences scattered up and down in the differ, 
ent numbers of it, were afterwards thrown together into a con- 
nected discourse under the title of the Way to Wealth, a produc- 
tion which has become so extensively popular, that every one of 
our readers is probably familiar with it. 

We shall quote, in his own words, the account he gives us of 
the manner in which he pursued one branch of his studies : — 

" I had begun," says he, " in 1733, to study languages. I soon 
made myself so much a master of the French, as to be able to 
read the books in that language with ease. I then undertodk the 
Itahan. An acquaintance, who was also learning it, used often to 
tempt me to play chess with him. Finding this took up too much 
of the time I had to spare for study, I at length refused to play 
any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game 
should have a right to impose a task, either of parts of the gram- 
mar to be got by heart, or in translations, &c., which tasks the 
vanquished was to perform upon honor before our next meeting. 
As we played pretty equally, we thus beat one another into that 
language. I afterwards, with a little pains-taking, acquired as 
much of the Spanish as to read their books also. I have already 
mentioned that I had had only one year's instruction in a Latin 
school, and that when very young, after which I neglected that 
language entirely. But when I had attained an acquaintance 
with the French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surprised to find, on 



64 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood more of thai 
language than I had imagined, wliicli encouraged me to apply 
myself again to the study of it ; and I met with the more success, 
as those preceding languages had greatly smoothed my way." 

In 1736 he was chosen clerk of the general assembly, and being 
soon after appointed deputy postmaster for the state, he turned his 
thoughts to public affairs, beginning, however, as he says, with 
small matters. He first occupied himself in improving the city 
watch ; then suggested and promoted the establishment of a fire- 
insurance company ; and afterwards exerted himself in organizing 
a philosophical society, an academy for the education of youth, 
and a militia for the defence of the province. In short, every 
part of the civil government, as he tells us, and almost at the 
same time, imposed some duty upon him. " The governor," he 
says, " put me into the commission of the peace ; the corporation 
of the city chose me one of the common council, and soon after 
alderman ; and the citizens at large elected me a burgess to repre- 
sent them in assembly. This latter station was the more agi-eable 
to me, as I grew at length tired with sitting there to hear the de- 
bates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were 
often so uninteresting that I was induced to amuse myself with 
making magic squares or circles, or any thing to avoid weariness ; 
and I conceived my becoming a member would enlarge my power 
of doing good. I would not, however, insinuate that my ambition 
was not flattered by all these promotions, — it certainly was ; for, 
considering my low beginning, they were great things to me ; and 
they were still more pleasing as being so many spontaneous testi- 
monies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited." 

It is time, however, that we should introduce this extraordinary 
man to our readers in a new character. A much more important 
part in civil affairs than any he had yet acted was in reserve for 
him. He lived to attract to himself on the theatre of politics, the 
eyes, not of his own countrymen only, but of the whole civilized 
world ; and to be a principal agent in the production of events as 
mighty in themselves, and as pregnant with mighty consequences, 
as any belonging to modern history. But our immediate object is 
to exhibit a portrait of the diligent student, and of the acute and 
patient philosopher. We have now to speak of Frankhn's famous 
electrical discoveries. Of these discoveries we cannot, of course, 
here attempt to give any thing more than a very general account. 
But we shall endeavor to make our statement as intelligible as 
possible, even to those to whom the subject is new. 

The term electricity is derived from electron, the Greek name 
for amber, which was known, even in ancient times, to be capable 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 55 

of acquiring, by being rubbed, the curious property of attracting 
very light bodies, such as small bits of paper, when brought near 
to them. This virtue was thought to be peculiar to the substance 
in question, and one or two others, down to the close of the six- 
teeiith century, when William Gilbert, a physician of London, an- 
nounced for the first time, in his Latin treatise on the magnet, that 
it belonged equally to the diamond and many other precious stones ; 
to glass, sulphur, sealing wax, rosin, and a variety of other sub- 
stances. It is from this period that we are to date the birth of the 
science of Electricity, which, however, continued in its infancy for 
above a century, and could hardly, indeed, be said to consist of any 
thing more than a collection of unsystematized and ill-understood 
facts, until it attracted the attention of Franklin. 

Among the facts, however, that had been discovered in this in- 
terval, the following were the most important. In the first place, the 
list of the substances capable of being excited by friction to a mani- 
festation of electric virtue, was considerably extended. It was 
also found that the bodies which had been attracted by the excited 
substance were immediately after as forcibly repelled by it, and 
could not be again attracted imtil they had touched a third body. 
Other phenomena, too, besides those of attraction and repulsion, 
were found to take place when the body excited was one of suffi- 
cient magnitude. If any other body, not capable of being excited, 
such as the human hand or a rod of metal, was presented to it, a 
sligM sound would be produced, which, if the experiment was per- 
formed in a dark room, would be accompanied with a momentaiy 
light. Lastly, it was discovered that the electric virtue might be 
imparted to bodies not capable of being themselves excited, by 
making such a body, when insulated, that is to say, separated from 
all other bodies of'the same class by the intervention of one capable 
of excitation, act either as the rubber of the excited body, or as 
the drawer of a succession of sparks from it, in the manner that 
has just been described. It was said, in either of these cases, to 
be electrified ; and it was found that if it was touched, or even 
closely approached, when in this state, by any other body, in like 
manner incapable of being excited by friction, a pretty loud report 
would take place, accompanied, if either body were susceptible of 
feeling, with a slight sensation of pain at the point of contact, and 
which would instantly restore the electrified body to its usual and 
natural condition- 
In consequence of its thus appearing that all those bodies, and 
only those, which could not be themselves excited, might in this 
manner have electricity, as it were, transferred to them, they were 
designated conductors, as well as non-electrics : while all electrics, 

3* 



56 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

on the other hand, were also called non-conductors. It is proper, how- 
ever, that the reader should be aware, that of the various substances 
in nature, none, strictly speaking, belong exclusively to either of 
these classes ; the truth being merely, that different bodies admit 
the passage of the electric influence with extremely different de- 
grees of facility, and that those which transmit it readily are called 
conductors, — the metals, and fluids, and living animals particularly 
belonging to this class ; while such as resist its passage, or permit 
it only with extreme reluctance, — among which are amber, sulphur, 
wax, glass, and silk, are described by the opposite denomination. 

The beginning of the year 1746 is memorable in the annals of 
electricity for the accidental discovery of the possibility of accumu- 
lating large quantities of the electric fluid, by means of what was 
caUed the Leyden jar, or phial. M. Cuneus, of that city, happened 
one day, while repeating some experiments which had been origin- 
ally suggested by M. Von Kleist, Dean of the Cathedral in Camin, 
to hold in one hand a glass vessel, nearly full of water, into which 
he had been sending a charge from an electrical machine, by means 
of a wire dipped into it, and communicating with the prime con- 
ductor, or insulated non-electric, exposed in the manner we have 
already mentioned to the action of the excited cyhnder. He was 
greatly surprised, upon applying his other hand to disengage the 
wire from the conductor, when he thought that the water had acquired 
as much electricity as the machine could give it, by receiving a 
sudden shock in his arms and breast, much more severe than any 
thing of the kind he had previously encountered in the course of 
his experiments. The same thing, it was found, took place when 
the glass was covered, both within and without, Avith any other 
conductors than the water and the human hand, which had been 
used in this instance ; as, for example, when it was coated on both 
sides with tinfoil, in such a manner, however, that the two coatmgs 
were completely separated from each other, by a space around the 
Up of the vessel being left uncovered. Whenever a communi- 
cation was formed by the interposition of a conducting medium be- 
tween the inside and outside coating, an instant and loud explosion 
took place, accompanied with a flash of light, and the sensation of a 
sharp blow, if the conductor employed was any part of the human 
body. 

The first announcement of the wonders of the Leyden phial 
excited the curiosity of all Europe. The accounts given of the 
electric shock by those who first experiencd it are perfectly ludicrous, 
and well illustrate how strangely the imagination is acted upon by 
surprise and terror, when novel or unexpected results suddenly 
come upon it. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 57 

From the original accounts, as Dr. Priestley observes, could we not 
have repeated the experiment, we should have formed a very differ- 
ent idea of the electric shock to what it reaUy is, even when given 
in greater strength than it could have been by those early experi- 
menters. It was this experiment, however, that first made electri- 
city a subject of general curiosity. Every body was eager, not- 
withstanding the alarming reports that were spread of it, to feel the 
new sensation ; and hi the same year in which the experiment was 
first made at Leyden, numbers of persons, in ahnost every country 
in Europe, obtained a hvelihood by going about and showing it. 

The particulars, then, that we have enimierated may be said to 
have constituted the whole of the science of Electricity, in the shape 
in which it first presented itself to the notice of Dr. Franklin. In 
the way in which we have stated them, they are httle more, the 
reader wiU observe, than a mass of seemingly unconnected facts, 
havuig, at first sight, no semblance whatever of being the results 
of a common principle, or of being reducible to any general and 
comprehensive system. It is true that a theory, that of M. Dufay, 
had been formed before this time to account for many of them, and 
also for others that we have not mentioned ; but it does not appear 
that Franklin ever heard of it until he had formed his own, which 
is, at aU events, entirely different ; so that it is unnecessary for us 
to take it at aU into account. We shall form a fair estimate of the 
amount and merits of Frankhn's discoveries, by considering the 
facts we have mentioned, as really constituting the science in the 
state m which he found it. 

It was in the year 1746, as he teUs us himself in the narrative of 
his life, that, being at Boston, he met with a Dr. Spence, who had 
lately arrived from Scotland, and who showed him some electrical 
experiments. They were imperfectly performed, as the doctor 
was not veiy expert ; " but being," says Franklin, " on a subject 
quite new to me, they equally surprised and pleased me. Soon 
after my return to Philadelphia, our Libraiy Company received 
from Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S., of London, a present of a glass 
tube, with some account of the use of it in making such experi- 
ments. I eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what I had 
seen at Boston ; and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in 
performing those also which we had an account of from England, 
adding a number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house 
was continually full for some time, with persons who came to see 
these new wonders. To divide a little this encumbrance among my 
friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in our glass 
house, with which they furnished themselves, so that we had at 
length several performers." The newly discovered and extraor- 



58 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

dinary phenomena exhibited by the Leyden phial of course very 
early engaged his attention in pursuing these interesting experi- 
ments ; and his inquisitive mind immediately set itself to work to 
find out the reason of such strange effects, which stiU astonished 
and perplexed the ablest philosophers of Europe. Out of his spec- 
ulations arose the ingenious and beautiful theoiy of the action 
of the electric influence which is known by his name : and which 
has ever since been received by the greater number of philosophers 
as the best, because the simplest and most complete, demonstration 
of the phenomena that has yet been given to the world. 

Dr. Franklin's earliest inquiries were directed to ascertain the 
source of the electricity which friction had the effect of at least 
rendering manifest in the glass cylinder, or other electric. The 
question was, whether this virtue was created by the friction in the 
electric, or only thereby communicated to it from other bodies. 
In order to determine this point, he resorted to the very simple 
experiment of endeavoring to electrify himself; that is to say, 
having insulated himself, and excited the cylinder by rubbing it 
with his hand, he then drew off its electricity from it in the usual 
manner into his own body. But he found that he was not thereby 
electrified at all, as he would have been by doing the same thing, 
had the friction been applied by another person. No spark could 
be obtained from him, after the operation, by the presentment of a 
conductor ; nor did he exhibit on such bodies as were brought 
near him any of the other usual evidences of being charged with 
electricity. 

If the electricity had been created in the electric by the friction, 
it was impossible to conceive why the person who drew it off 
should not have been electrified in this case, just as he would have 
been had another person acted as the rubber. The result evidently 
indicated that the friction had effected a change upon the person 
who had performed that operation, as well as upon the cylinder, 
since it had rendered him incapable of being electrified by a pro- 
cess by which, in other circumstances, he would have been so. It 
was plain, in short, that the electricity had passed, in the first in- 
stance, out of his body into the cylinder ; which, therefore, in com- 
municating it to him in the second instance, only gave him back 
what it had received, and, instead of electrifying him, merely re- 
stored him to his usual state — to that- in which he had been before 
the experiment was begun. 

This accordingly was the conclusion to which Franklin came ; 
but, to confirm it, he next insulated two individuals, one of whom 
he made to rub the cylinder, while the other drew the electricity 
from it. In this case, it was not the latter merely that was 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 59 

affected ; both were electrified. The one had given out as much 
electricity to the cylinder in rubbing it, as the other had drawn 
from it. To prove this stiU farther, he made them touch one 
another, when both were instantly restored to their usual state, 
the redundant electricity thrown off by the one exactly making up 
the deficiency of the other. The spark produced by their contact 
was also, as was to have been expected, greater than that which 
took place when either of them was touched by any third person 
who had not been electrified. 

Proceeding upon the inferences which these results seemed so 
evidently to indicate, Franklin constructed the general outlines of 
his theory. Every body in nature he considered to have its natural 
quantity of electricity, which may, however, be either diminished, 
by part of it being given out to another body, as that of the rubber, 
in the operation of the electrical macliine, is given out to the 
cylinder ; or increased, as when the body is made to receive the 
electricity from the cylinder. In the one case he regarded the 
body as negatively, in the other as positively, electrified. In the 
one case it had less, in the other more, than its natural quantity 
of electricity : in either, therefore, supposing it to be composed of 
electricity and common matter, the usual equilibrium or balance 
between its two constituent ingredients was, for the time, upset or 
destroyed. 

But how should this produce the different effects which are ob- 
served to result from the action of electrified bodies ? How is the 
mere circumstance of the overthrow of the customary equilibrium 
between the electricity and the matter of a body to be made to 
account for its attraction and repulsion of other bodies, and for the 
extraordinaiy phenomena presented by the Leyden phial 1 The 
Franklinian theory answers these questions with great ease and 
completeness. 

The fimdamental law of the electric fluid, according to this 
theory, is, that its particles attract matter, and repel one another. 
To this we must add a similar law "svith regard to the particles of 
matter, namely, that they repel each other, as well as attract elec- 
tricity. This latter consideration was somewhat unaccountably 
overlooked by Franklin ; but was afterwards introduced by Mr. 
iEpinus, of Petersburg, and the late celebrated Mr. Cavendish, in 
their more elaborate expositions of his theory of the electrical 
action. Let us now apply these two simple principles to the ex- 
planation of the facts we have already mentioned. 

In the first place, when two bodies are in their ordinary or 
natural state, the quantity of matter is an exact balance for the 
quantity of electricity in each, and there is accordingly no tendency 



60 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

of the fluid to escape ; no spark will take place between two such 
bodies when they are brought into contact. Nor will they either 
attract or repel each other, because the attractive and repulsive 
forces operating between them are exactly balanced, the two at- 
tractions of the electricity in the first for the matter in the second, 
and of the electricity in the second for the matter in the first, being 
opposed by the two repulsions of the electricity in the first for the 
electricity in the second, and of the matter in the first for the mat- 
ter in the second. They, therefore, produce no effect upon each 
other whatever. 

But let us next suppose that one of the bodies is an electric 
which has been excited in the usual way by friction, a stick of 
wax, or a glass cylinder, for example, which has been rubbed with 
the hand, or a piece of dry silk. In this case, the body in question 
has received an addition to its natural quantity of electricity, which 
addition, accordingly, it will most readily part with whenever it is 
brought into contact with a conductor. But this is not all. Let 
us see how it will act, according to the law that has been stated, 
upon the other body, which we shall suppose to be in its natural 
state, when they are brought near each other. First, from the 
repulsive tendency of the electric particles, the extra electricity in 
the excited body will drive away a portion of the electricity of the 
other from its nearest end, which will thus become negatively elec- 
trified, or will consist of more matter than is necessary to balance 
its electricity. In this state of things, what are the attractive and 
repulsive forces operating between the two bodies, the one, be it 
remembered, having an excess of electricity, and the other an 
excess of matter ? There are, in fact, five attractive forces opposed 
by only four repulsive ; the former being those of the matter in the 
first body for the electricity in the second, of the balanced electri- 
city in the first for the balanced matter in the second, of the same 
for the extra matter in the second, together with the two of the 
extra electricity in the first for the same two quantities of matter ; 
and the latter bemg those of the matter in the first for the balanced 
matter in the second, of the same for the extra matter in the 
second, together with those of the electricity in the second both 
for the balanced and the extra electricity in the first. The two 
bodies, therefore, ought to meet, as we find they actually do. But 
no sooner do they meet than the extra electricity of the first, at- 
tracted by the matter of the second, flows over partly to it ; and 
both bodies become positively electrified ; that is to say, each 
contains a quantity of electricity beyond that which its matter is 
capable of balancing. It will be found, upon examination, that 
we have now four powers of attraction opposed by five of rep 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 61 

sion ; the former being those of the matter in each body for the 
two electricities in the other, the latter those exerted by each of 
the electricities in the one against both the electricities of the 
other, together with that of the matter in the one for the matter 
in the other. The bodies now accordingly should repel each 
other, just as we find to be the fact. Of course the same reason, 
ing applies to the case of a neutral body, and any other containing 
a superabundance of electricity, whether it be an electric or no, 
and in whatever way its electricity may have been communicated 
to it. We may add that there is no case of at'A.'action or repulsion 
between two bodies, in which the results indicated by the theory 
do not coincide with those of observation as exactly as in this. 

We now come to the phenomena of the Leyden phial. The 
two bodies upon which we are here to fix our attention are the in- 
terior and exterior coatings, which, before the process of charging 
has commenced, are of course in their natural state, each having 
exactly that quantity of electricity which its matter is able to 
balance, and neither therefore exerting any efiect whatever upon 
the other. But no sooner has the interior coating received an 
additional portion of electricity from the prime conductor, with 
which the reader will remember it is in communication, than, 
being now positively electrified, it repels a corresponding portion 
of its electricity from the exterior coating, which therefore be- 
comes negatively electrified. As the operation goes on, both these 
effects increase, till at last the superabundance of electricity in the 
one surface, and its deficiency in the other, reach the limit to 
which it is wished to carry them. All this while, it will be re- 
marked, the former is prevented from giving out its superfluity to 
the latter by the interposition of the glass, which is a non-con- 
ductor, and the uncovered space which had been left on both sides 
around the lip of the vessel. If the charge were made too high, 
however, even these obstacles would be overcome, and the un- 
balanced electricity of the interior coating, finding no easier vent, 
would at last rush through the glass to the unsaturated matter on 
its opposite surface, probably shattering it to pieces in its progress. 
But, to efiect a discharge in the usual manner, a communication 
must be established by means of a good conductor between the 
:wo surfaces, before this extreme limit be reached. If either a 
rod of metal, for example, or the human body, be employed for 
this purpose, the fluid from the interior coating will instantly rush 
along the road made for it, occasioning a pretty loud report, and, 
in the latter case, a severe shock, by the rapidity of its passage. 
Both coatings will, in consequence, be immediately restored to 
their natural state. 



62 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

That this is the true explanation of the matter Franklin further 
demonstrated by a variety of ingenious experiments. In the first 
place, he found that, if the outer coating was cut off, by being in- 
sulated from every conducting body, the inner coating could not 
be charged ; the electricity in the outer coating had here no means 
of escape, and it was consequently impossible to produce in that 
coating the requisite negative electricity. On the other hand, if a 
good conductor was brought within the striking distance from the 
outside coating, while the process of charging was going on, the 
expelled fluid might be seen passing away towards it in sparks, in 
proportion as more was sent from the prime conductor into the 
inside of the vessel. He observed also that, when a phial was 
charged, a cork ball, suspended on silk, would be attracted by the 
one coating when it had been repelled by the other — an additional 
indication and proof of their opposite states of electricity, as might 
be easily shown by an analysis of the attractive and repulsive forces 
operating between the two bodies in each case. 

But Franklin did not rest contented with ascertaining the prin- 
ciple of the Ley den phial. He made also a very happy applica- 
tion of this principle, which afforded a still more wonderful mani- 
festation than had yet been obtained of the powers of accumulated 
electricity. Considering the waste that took place, in the common 
experiment, of the fluid expelled, during the process of charging, 
from the exterior coating, he conceived the idea of employing it to 
charge the inner surface of a second jar, which he efiected, of 
course, by the simple expedient of drawing it off by means of a 
metal rod communicating with that surface. The electricity ex- 
pelled from the outside of this second jar was conveyed, in like 
manner, into the inside of a third ; and, in this way, a great num. 
ber of jars were charged with the same facility as a single one. 
Then, having connected all the inside coatings with one conductor, 
and all the outside coatings with another, he had merely to bring 
these two general conductors into contact or communication, in 
order to discharge the whole accumulation at once. This con. 
tri v'ance he called an electrical battery. 

The general sketch we have just given will put the reader in 
possession, at least, of the great outlines of the Franklinian theory 
of electricity, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful generalizations 
to be found in the whole compass of science. By the aid of what 
we may call a single principle, since the law with regard to the 
electric fluid and common matter is exactly the same, it explains 
satisfactorily not only all the facts connected with this interesting 
subject which were known when it was first proposed, but all those 
ihteit have been since discovered, diffusing order and light through. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 63 

out what seemed before little better than a chaos of unintelligible 
contradictions. We must now, however, turn to a very brilliant 
discovery of this illustrious philosopher, the reality of which does 
not depend upon the truth or falsehood of any theory. 

FraJoldin was by no means the first person to whom the idea 
had suggested itself of a similarity between electricity and hght- 
ning. Not to mention many other names which might be quoted, 
the Abbe NoUet had, before him, not only intimated his suspicion 
that thunder might be in the hands of Nature what electricity is 
in ours, but stated a variety of reasons on which he rested his 
conjecture. It is to Franklin alone, however, that the glory be- 
longs of both pointing out the true method of verifying this con. 
jecture, and of actually establishing the perfect identity of the two 
powers in question. " It has, indeed, been of late the fashion," 
says the editor of the first account of liis electrical experiments, 
published at London in 1751, " to ascribe every grand or unusual 
operation of nature, such as lightning and earthquakes, to electri- 
city; not, as one would imagine from the matter of reasoning on 
these occasions, that the authors of these schemes have discovered 
any connection betwixt the cause and effect, or saw in what man- 
ner they were related ; but, as it would seem, merely because they 
were unacquainted with any other agent, of which it could not 
positively be said the connection was impossible." Franklin trans- 
formed what had been little more than a figure of rhetoric into a 
most important scientific fact. 

In a paper, dated November 7, 1749, he enumerates aU the 
known points of resemblance between lightning and electricity. 
In the first place, he remarks, it is no wonder that the effects of 
the one should be so much greater than those of the other ; for if 
two gun-barrels electrified will strike at two inches distance, and 
make a loud report, at how great a distance will ten thousand acres 
of electrified cloud strike, and give its fire ; and how loud must be 
that crack ! He then notices the crooked and waving course, both 
of the flash of lightning, and, in some cases, of the electric sparks ; 
the tendency of lightning, like electricity, to take the readiest and 
best conductor ; the facts that lightning, as well as electricity, dis- 
solves metals, burns some bodies, rends others, strikes people bhnd, 
destroys animal life, reverses the poles of magnets, &c. 

He had known for some time the extraordinary power of pointed 
bodies, both in drawing and in throwing off" the electric fire. The 
true explanation of this fact did not occur to him ; but it is a 
direct consequence of the fundamental principle of his own theory, 
according to which the repulsive tendency of the particles of elec. 
tricity towards each other, occasioning the fluid to retire, in every 



64 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

case, ft»m the interior to the surface of bodies, drives it with 
especial force towards points and other prominences, and thus 
favors its escape through such outlets ; while, on the other hand, 
the more concentrated attraction which the matter of a pointed 
body, as compared with that of a blunt one, exerts upon the elec- 
tricity to which it is presented, brings it down into its new channel 
in a denser stream. In possession, however, of the fact, we find 
him concluding the paper we have mentioned as follows : — " The 
electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether 
this property be in lightning ; but since they agree in all the par- 
ticulars in which we can already compare them, it is not improb- 
able that they agree likewise in this. Let the experiment be 
made." 

Full of this idea, it was yet some time before he found what he 
conceived a favorable opportunity of trying its truth in the way he 
meditated. A spire was about to be erected in Philadelphia, which 
he thought would afford him facilities for the experiment ; but his 
attention having been one day drawn by a kite which a boy was 
flying, it suddenly occurred to him, that here was a method of 
reaching the clouds preferable to any other. Accordingly, he 
immediately took a large silk handkerchief, and stretching it over 
two cross sticks, formed in this manner his simple apparatus for 
drawing down the lightning from its cloud. Soon after, seeing 
a thunder-storm approaching, he took a walk into a field in the 
neighborhood of the city in which there was a shed, communi- 
cating his intentions, however, to no one but his son, whom he 
took with him, to assist him in raising the kite : this was in June, 
1752. 

The kite being raised, he fastened a key to the lower extremity 
of the hempen string, and then insulating it by attaching it to a 
post by means of silk, he placed himself under the shed, and wait- 
ed the result. For some time no signs of electricity appeared. A 
cloud, apparently charged with lightning, had even passed over 
them without producing any effect. At length, however, just as 
Franklin was beginning to despair, he observed some loose threads 
of the hempen string rise and stand erect, exactly as if they hao 
been repelled from each other by being charged with electricity 
He immediately presented his knuckle to the key, and, to his in 
expressible delight, drew from it the well-knov/n electrical spark 
It is said that his emotion was so great at this completion of a 
discovery which was to make his name immortal, that he heaved 
a deep sigh, and felt that he could that moment have willingly died. 
As the rain increased, the cord became a better conductor, and 
the key gave out its electricity copiously. Had the hemp been 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 65 

thoroughly wet, the bold experimenter might, as he was contented 
to do, have paid for his discovery with his life. 

He afterwards brought down the lightning into his house, by 
means of an insulated iron rod, and performed with it, at his 
leisure, all the experiments that could be performed with elec- 
tricity. But he did not stop here. His active and practical mind 
was not satisfied even with the splendid discoveiy, until he had 
turned it to a useful end. There was always a strong tendency 
in Frankhn's philosophy to these practical applications. The 
lightning-rod was probably the result of some of the amusing ex- 
periments with which Franklin was, at the commencement of his 
electrical investigations, accustomed to employ his own leisure, 
and ajSbrd pleasure to his friends. In one of his letters to Mr. Col- 
linson, dated so early as 1748, we find him expressing himself in 
the following strain, in reference to his electrical experiments : — 
" Chagrined a little that we have hitherto been able to produce 
nothing in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather coming 
on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed 
to put an end to them for this season somewhat humorously, in a 
party of pleasure on the banks of the Schuylkill. Spirits at the same 
time are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the 
river, without any other conductor than the water — an experiment 
which we have some time since performed to the amazement of 
many. A turkey is to be killed for dinner by the electrical shocks 
and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the 
electrical bottle ; when the healths of all the famous electricians in 
England, Holland, France, and Germany, are to be drunk in elec- 
irijied lumjpers, under the discharge of guns from the electrical 
lattery. ^^ 

Frankhn's electrical discoveries did not, on their first announce- 
ment, attract much attention in England ; and, indeed, he had the 
mortification of learning that his paper on the similarity of light- 
ning to electricity, when read by a friend to the Royal Society, had 
been only laughed at by that learned body. In France, however, 
the account that had been published in London of his experiments, 
fortunately fell into the hands of the celebrated naturalist, Buffon, 
who was so much struck with it, that he had it translated into 
French, and printed at Paris. This made it immediately known 
to all Europe ; and versions of it in various other modern languages 
soon appeared, as well as one in Latin. The theory propounded 
in it was at first violently opposed in France by the Abbe Nollet, 
who had one of his own to support, and, as Franklin teUs ust 
could not at first beheve that such a work came from America ; but 
said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris. The Abbe 




66 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

was eventually, however, deserted by all his partisans, and lived to 
see himself the last of his sect. In England, too, the Frank linian 
experiments gradually began to be more spoken of; and, at last, 
even the Royal Society was induced to resume the consideration 
of the papers that had formerly been read to them. One of their 
members verified the grand experiment of bringing down lightning 
from the clouds ; and upon his reading to them an account of his suc- 
cess, " they soon," says Franklin, " made me more than amends for 
the slight with which they had before ti-eated me. Without my having 
made any application for that honor, they chose me a member; 
and voted that I should be excused the customary payments, which 
would have amounted to twenty-five guineas ; and ever since have 
given me their transactions gratis. They also presented me with 
the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley, for the year 1753, the de- 
livery of which was accompanied with a very handsome speech of 
the president. Lord Macclesfield, wherein I was highly honored." 
Some years afterwards, when he was in Great Britain with his 
son, the University of St. Andrew's conferred upon him the degree 
of Doctor of Laws ; and its example was followed by the Univer- 
sities of Edinburgh and Oxford. He was also elected a member 
of many of the learned societies throughout Europe. 

No philosopher of the age now stood on a prouder eminence 
than this extraordinary man, who had originally been one of the 
most obscure of the people, and had raised himself to all this 
distinction almost without the aid of any education but such as he 
had given himself. Who will say, after reading his story, that any 
thing more is necessary for the attainment of knowledge than the 
determination to attain it ? — that there is any other obstacle to even 
the highest degree of intellectual advancement which may not be 
overcome, except a man's own listlessness or indolence ? The 
secret of this man's success in the cultivation of his mental powers 
was, that he was ever awake and active in that business ; that he 
suffered no opportunity of forwarding it to escape him unimproved ; 
that, however poor, he found at least a few pence, were it even by 
diminishing his scanty meals, to pay for the loan of the books he 
could not buy ; that, however hard- wrought, he found a few hours 
in the week, were it by sitting up half the night after toiling all the 
day, to read and study them. Others may not have his original 
powers of mind ; but his industry, his perseverance, his self-com- 
mand, are for the imitation of all: and though few may look for- 
ward to the rare fortune of achieving discoveries like his, all may 
derive both instruction and encouragement from his example. 
They who may never overtake the light, may at least follow its path, 
and guide their footsteps by its illumination. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 67 

Were we to pursue the remainder of Franklin's history, we 
should find the fame of the patriot vying with that of the philoso- 
pher, in casting a splendor over it ; and the originally poor and 
unknown tradesman standing before kings, associating as an equal 
with the most eminent statesmen of his time, and arranging along 
with them the wars and treaties of mighty nations. When the 
struggle for independence commenced, Franklin took a very active 
part. He was soon sent ambassador to the court of France, where 
principally through his exertions an alliance was brought about 
between the two countries, which produced an immediate war be- 
tween the latter and England. In 1783, he signed the treaty of 
peace, which recognised our independence. Two years after he 
arrived in Philadelphia, where he was chosen president of the 
Supreme Executive Council of the city. He closed his eventful 
and honorable life on the 17th of April, 1790, in the eighty-fifth 
year of his age. 

Franklin was in conversation sprightly, in manners bland. Des- 
titute of pride, he considered all honest men on an equality. Dur- 
ing the time he was in Great Britain, in the dignified station of 
ambassador, he went into his old printing office, and entering the 
press-room, proceeded to a particular press where two men were 
at work : " Come, my friends," says he, " we will drink together ; 
it is now forty years since I worked like you at this press, as a jour- 
neyman printer." A gallon of porter was sent for, and he then 
drank ^^ success to printing." At a later period, the merchants in 
Philadelphia being desirous to establish an assembly for dancing, 
they drew up some rules, among which was one " that no mechanic 
or mechanic's wife or daughter should be admitted on any terms." 
This rule being submitted to Franklin, he remarked that " it ex- 
cluded God Almighty, for he was the greatest mechanic in the uni. 
verse." An enemy to every thing aristocratic, even his eloquence 
partook of an unpretending character ; but he developed his ideas 
with clearness and precision. He had always at hand an immense 
stock of common sense, and possessed the veiy useful quality of 
being " eminently great in httle things." 



OLIVER EVANS. 



Birth. — Apprenticed to a waggn maker. — Fondness for study. — Penuriousness of 
his master. — ^Pursues his evening studies by the Ught of burning shavings. — 
Turns his attention to the propelling of carriages without animal power. — ^An 
experiment. — Renews his studies with increased ardor. — Is laughed at for de- 
claring that he can make steam carriages. — Opinions confirmed by experiment. 
— Is defrauded of an invention for making card teeth. — Marries. — Enters into 
the milling business with his brothers. — His inventions revolutionize the man- 
ufacture of flour. — Account of those improvements. — Difficulties attending 
their introduction. — Opposition of the Brandywine millers. — Petitions the Le- 
gislature of Pennsylvania for the right of using his mill improvements and 
steam carriages. — The former granted and the latter ridiculed. — The Legislature 
of Maryland grant them both. — Commences a steam carriage at his own ex- 
pense. — Latrobe's report. — Lays aside the carriage and builds a steam engine for 
mills, which reduces him to poverty. — Final success. — Constructs a machine 
for cleaning docks. — First American locomotive. — Public incredulity. — His the 
first high pressure engine. — Submits a proposition to the Lancaster turnpike 
company. — Predictions. — Mill improvements gradually come into use. — Viola- 
tors. — Unsuccessful lawsuit. — Petitions congress for a renewal of his patents. 
— Memorial of his opponents. — Counter memorial. — Triumph. — His published 
works. — Death. 

It is but seldom that the pen of the biographer has occasion to 
trace the memoir of an individual possessing equal perseverance, 
or greater originality of mechanical conception, than the subject of 
this memoir, who has been aptly styled " the Watt of America." 

Oliver Evans was born in Newport, Delaware, sometime in the 
year 1755 or 1756. Little is preserved respecting his early his- 
tory. His parents were agriculturists of respectable standing, who 
gave their son the advantages common to people in their station. 
At the age of fourteen Evans was apprenticed to a wheelwright 
or wagon maker. An anecdote is preserved which displays 
in his character, even at this period, that ardent desire for know- 
ledge, and that determination ever evinced not to let any obstacle 
interfere with the object of his pursuits. His master, an illiterate 
man, observing his apprentice employing his leisure evenings in 
study, through motives of parsimony, forbade him using candles ; 
but young Evans was not to be discouraged, for, collecting at the 
close of each day the shavings made from his work, he would take 
them to the chimney corner, and, by their uncertain hght, pursue 
his evening studies. 

While yet an apprentice his attention was turned to the subject 




OLIVER EVANS. 



OLIVER EVANS. 71 

of propelling land carriages without animal power ; but all the 
methods with which he was acquainted appearing too futile to de- 
serve an experiment, he concluded such motion to be impossible for 
the want of a suitable original power. But one of his brothers 
informed him on a Christmas evening that he had that day been 
in company with a neighboriag blacksmith's boy, who, for amuse- 
ment, had stopped up the touch-hole of a gun barrel, then pouring 
in a gill of water, rammed down a tight wad ; after which on put- 
ting the breech in the fire, it discharged itself with a report like 
gunpowder. The active mind of Evans, ever awake to the phe- 
nomena around him, instantly saw that here was the long desired 
power, if he could only apply it, and from this period endeavored 
to discover the means. He labored for some time without success ; 
at length a book fell into his hands describing the old atmospheric 
steam engine ; and he was greatly astonished to observe they had so 
far erred as to use the steam only in forming a vacuum to apply the 
mere pressure of the atmosphere, instead of using the elastic force 
of the steam for the original motion, the power of which he sup. 
posed irresistible. He thereupon renewed his studies with in- 
creased ardor, and soon declared that he could make steam car- 
riages, and endeavored to communicate his ideas to others, but was 
only hstened to with ridicule. Persevering, his experiments confirm, 
ed his opinions ; but want of means for a time compelled him to 
abandon its prosecution. 

When twenty -three or twenty-four years of age he was engaged 
in making card teeth by hand, at that period the only method 
known. Finding this a tedious operation, he invented a machine 
that would manufacture three thousand a minute, but was defrauded 
of a great share of the benefits derived from it. Shortly after he 
projected a plan for pricking the leather in cards, and at the same 
time cutting, bending, and setting the teeth ; but owing to the un- 
fortunate result of the previous invention, never carried it into 
execution. 

At the age of twenty-five Mr. Evans married a daughter of Mr. 
John Tomhnson, a respectable farmer of Delaware. About this 
period he entered into business ■with his brothers, who were mil- 
lers, and wished to avail themselves of his talents and ingenuity. 
Here was an appropriate field for the display of a genius Kke his, 
and ere long was commenced those series of improvements in the 
construction of machine ly and appurtenances of mills which efiected 
a complete revolution in the manufacture of flour. These improve- 
ments consist of the invention and various application of the fol- 
lowing machines, viz : — The elevator, the conveyor, the hopper- 
bov, the drill, and the descender, which five machines are variously 

4 



72 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

applied in different mills according to their construction, so as to 
perform every necessary movement of the graia and meal from 
one part of the mill to the other, or from one machine to another, 
through all the various operations, from the time the grain is emp- 
tied from the wagoner's bag, or from the measure on board the 
ship, until it is completely manufactured into flour, separated, and 
ready for packing ; all of which is performed by the force of the water, 
without the aid of manual labor, except to set the different machines in 
motion. The advantages derived from these improvements are great 
in almost every respect, not only causing a saving of full one half 
in the labor of attendance, but manufacturing the flour better, and 
making about twenty-eight pounds of superfine flour 7nore to each 
barrel than was made by the old method.* 

These improvements were completed in theoiy as early as 1783, 
but were not carried into operation until a year or tv/o later ; and 
then before they perfectly succeeded, many alterations were to be 
made, and great difficulties to surmount. Although the result ex- 
ceeded expectation, yet the opposition which was experienced ren- 
dered their introduction into general use extremely laborious. To 
promote this object, Mr. Evans furnished his brother with the ne- 
cessary funds, and despatched him tlirough the country to establish 
them. He travelled through the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, and Virginia, offering the inventions gratis to the first in 
each county who would adopt them. After considerable expense 
he returned wholly unsuccessful, and without any favorable pros, 
pects for the future. The Brandjrvvine millers in particular op- 
posed their adoption with all their influence, until they wei-e in use 
in several mills around them. At length they held a consultal ion, 
and deputed one of their number to Mr. Evans to make propfisals 
as to the terms on which they would try the experiment, which 
were nearly in the words following, viz : " Oliver, we have had a 
meeting, and agreed that if thou would furnish all the materials, and 
thy own boarding, and come thyself to set up the machinery, in one 
of our mills, thee may come and try, and if it answers a valuable 
purpose, we will pay thy bill, but if it does not answer, thee must 
take it all out again, and leave the mill just as thee finds it, at thy 
own expense." The principles having already been tested, and 
these millers knowing Mr. Evans' reduced circumstances at the 

* When Mr. Evans' milling improvements came into popular use, it was esti- 
mated that at Ellicott's mills, near Baltimore, where three hundred and twenty- 
live barrels of flour were daily manufactured, that in expense of attendance alone, 
there was an annual saving of four thousand eight hundred and seventy-five dollars, 
and that the saving made by the increased amount manufactured, was at least 
fifty cents a barrel, amounting to a gain in this department of thirty-two thou- 
sand five hundred dollars ! 



OLIVER EVANS. 73 

time, he could but regard their propositions as a disposition to re- 
tard and embarrass rather than to encourage or forward the im- 
provement. 

The following anecdotes which were related by Mr. Evans, 
exhibit a strength of prejudice, on the part of these men, almost 
inconceivable. When he had his inventions in full operation, 
so that he 'could alone attend his mill with less fatigue than he 
could before, even with the assistance of two men and a boy, 
he invited the Brandywine millers to come and witness its opera- 
tion. It so happened that some of them called on a day when he had 
alone, both to attend the mill and make hay in an adjoining clover lot. 
On seeing their approach, he turned from them, thinking it best to 
let them enter the mill, and finding it attending to itself, would be 
convincing and ^positive proof of the great utility of the improve, 
ments. Entering, they found all the operations of cleaning, grind- 
ing, and bolting going on without the intervention of a human hand, 
with perfect regularity and despatch. In about half an hour, they 
came to Mr. Evans, and requested him to explain the whole of the 
operations, which he did willingly, but took care to inform them 
that it was an " uncommon busy" day with him, for he had both to 
attend the mill and make hay. After they left, Mr. Evans returned 
to the lot, leaving the mill to attend itself, and rejoicing at the lucky 
circumstance, not doubting but they were now fully convinced. But 
to his astonishment, he soon learned that on their return, they had 
reported to their neighboring millers, that the whole contrivance 
was a set of " rattle traps" not worthy the attention of men of com- 
mon sense ; which fixed more firmly the opposition of the rest to 
the adoption of the improvement. Some time later, he exhibited 
a model of his improved mill in the streets of Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, which was to be sent to England. Some of the crowd called 
to a Brandywine miller, as he happened to be passing, who was so 
struck with its simplicity and perfection, together with the obser- 
vations of those present, that he contracted with the inventor to 
construct one for him. It was soon put into operation in presence 
of the neighboring millers ; and though the elevators and conveyors, 
without the aid of human hands, brought the meal from the two 
pair of stones, and the tail-flour from the bolts to the hopper-boy, 
which spread it over the floor, stirring, fanning, and gathering it, 
and attending the bolting hoppers at the same time, yet one of 
them, in contradiction to the evidence of his own senses, exclaimed, 
" It will not do ! — it cannot do ! — it is impossible it should do !" 
y 1'he opposition of these millers cost him thousands of dollars in 
fruitless attempts to establish his inventions. Wherever his agents 
went, the inquiry was, " Have the Brandywine millers adopted 



74 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

them ?" The answer was of course, " No !" which was generally 
followed by this pertinent reply : " If those who are so much more 
extensively engaged in the manufacture of flour do not think them 
worthy their attention, they cannot certainly demand ours." This 
treatment on the part of these men recoiled upon themselves, and 
their obstinacy was such in adopting the improvements, that the 
mills on the Brandywine for a time lost their pre-eminence. 

In the year 1786, Mr. Evans petitioned the legislature of Penn- 
sylvania for the exclusive right to use his improvements in flour 
mills, and steam carriages, in that state, and in the year follow- 
ing presented a similar petition to the legislature of Maryland. In 
the former instance he was only successful so far as to obtain the 
privilege of the mill improvements; his representations concerning 
steam carriages were considered as savoring too much of insanity 
to deserve notice. He was more fortunate in Maryland, for, al- 
though the steam project was laughed at, yet one of his friends, a 
member, very judiciously observed that the grant could injure no 
one, for he did not think that any man in the world had thought of 
such a thing before, he therefore wished the encouragement might 
be afforded, as there was a prospect that it would produce some- 
thing useful. This kind of argument had its eflfect, and Evans 
i-eceived all that he asked for, and from that period considered 
himself bound in honor to the state of Maryland to produce a steam 
carriage, as soon as his means would allow him. 

For several years succeeding the granting of his petition by the 
legislature of Maryland, Mr. Evans endeavored to obtain some 
person of pecuniary resoui-ces to join with him in his plans ; and 
for this purpose explained his views by drafts, and otherwise, to 
some of the first mechanics in the country : although they appeared 
in several instances to understand them, yet declined any assistance 
from a fear of the expense and difficulty of their execution.* 

In the year 1800 or 1801, Mr. Evans, never having found any 
one willing to contribute to the expense, or even to encourage him 
in his efforts, determined to construct a steam carriage at his own 
expense. Previous to commencing he explained his views to Ro- 
bert Patterson, professor of mathematics in the University of Penn- 
sylvania, and to an eminent English engineer. They both de- 

* I certify that Oliver Evans did, about the year 1789, communicate a project 
■ to me of propelling land carriages by the power of steam, and did solicit me to 
join with him in the profits of the same. Levi Hollingswoeth. 

Baltimore, Nov. 16, 1812. 

I do certify that about 1781, (thirty-one years ago,) Oliver Evans, in conversa- 
tion with me, declared that by the power of steam he could drive any thing ; 
wagons, mills, or vessels by the same power. Enoch Anderson. 

November 15, 1312. 



OLIVER EVANS. 75 

clared the principles new to tliem, and advised the plan, as highly 
worthy of a fair experiment. These were the only persons who 
had any confidence, or afforded encouraging advice. He also 
communicated his plans to Mr. B. F. Latrobe, a highly scientific 
gentleman, who publicly pronounced them as chimerical, and at- 
tempted to demonstrate the absurdity of Mr. Evans' principles in 
his report to the Philosophical Society of Pennsylvania, on steam 
engines : in which he also endeavored to show the impossibility of 
making steamboats useful. In this report, Mr. Evans is one of 
the persons alluded to, as being seized with the " steam mania" 
but the liberality of the society caused them to reject that portion 
of the paper, conceiving that they had no right to set up their opin- 
ions as an obstacle in the way of any exertions to make a discovery, 
although they did not reject that gentleman's demonstrations respect 
ing steamboats. 

In consequence of the determination previously alluded to, Mr. 
Evans commenced and had made considerable progress in the 
construction of a steam carriage, when the idea occurred to him, 
that as his steam engine was altogether different in form, as well 
as in principle, from any other in use, a patent could be obtained 
for it, and then applied to mills, more profitably than to carriages. 
The steam carriage was accordingly laid aside for a season of more 
leisure, and the construction of a small engine was commenced, 
with a cylinder six inches in diameter, and piston of eighteen inches 
stroke, for a mill to grind plaster of Paris. The expense of its 
construction far exceeded Mr. Evans' calculations, and before the 
engine was finished he found it cost him all he was worth. He 
had then to begin the world anew, at the age of forty-eight, with a 
large family to support, and that too with a knowledge, that if the 
trial failed his credit would be entirely ruined, and his prospects 
for the remainder of life dark and gloomy. But fortune favored 
him, and his success was complete. 

In a brief account given by himself of his experiments in steam, 
he says, " I could break and grind three hundred bushels of plaster 
of Paris, or twelve tons, in twenty-four hours ; and to show its 
operations more fully to the public, I applied it to saw stone, on 
the side of Market-street, where the driving of twelve saws in 
heavy frames, sawing at the rate of one hundred feet of marble in 
twelve hours, made a great show and excited much attention. I 
thought this was sufficient to convince the thousands of spectators 
of the utility of my discoveiy, but I frequently heard them inquire 
if the power could be applied to saw timber, as well as stone, to 
grind grain, propel boats, &c., and though I answered in the affirm, 
ative, they still doubted. I therefore determined to apply my 



76 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

engine to all new uses ; to introduce it and them to the public. 
This experiment completely tested the correctness of my principles. 
The power of my engine rises in a geometrical proportion, while 
the consumption of fuel has only an arithmetical ratio ; in such 
proportion that every time I added one fourth moi-e to the consump. 
tion of the fuel, its powers were doubled ; and that twice the quan- 
tity of fuel required to drive one saw, would drive sixteen saws at 
least ; for when I drove two saws the consumption was eight bushels 
of coal in twelve hours, but when twelve saws were driven, the 
consumption was not more than ten bushels ; so that the more we 
resist the steam, the greater is the effect of the engine. On these 
principles very light but powerful engines can be made suitable for 
propelling boats and land carriages, without the great encumbrance 
of their^weight as mentioned in Latrobe's demonstration." 

In the year 1804, Mr. Evans, by order of the board of health of 
Philadelphia, constructed at his works, situated a mile and a half 
from the water, a machine for cleaning docks.* It consisted of a 
large flat or scow, with a steam engine of the power of five horses 
on board, to work machinery, in raising the mud into scows. 
This was considered a fine opportunity to show the public that his 
engine could propel both land and water conveyances. When the 
machine was finished, he fixed, in a rough and temporary manner, 
wheels with wooden axletrees, and of course, under the influence of 
great friction. Although the whole weight was equal to two hundred 
barrels of flour, yet his small engine propelled it up Market-street, 
and round the circle to the water works, where it was launched 
into the Schuylkill. A paddle wheel was then applied to its stern, 
and it thus sailed down that river to the Delaware, a distance of 
sixteen miles, leaving all vessels that were under sail at least half 
way, (the wind being ahead,) in the presence of thousands of spec- 
tators, which he supposed would have convinced them of the prac- 
ticability of steamboats and steam carriages. But no allowance 
was made by the public for the disproportion of the engine to its 
load, nor for the rough manner in which the machinery was fixed, 
or the great friction and ill form of the boat, but it was supposed 
that this was the utmost it could perform. Some individuals under- 
took to ridicule this experiment of driving so great a weight on 
land, because the motion was too slow to be useful. The inventor 
silenced them by answering that he would make a carriage 
propelled by steam, for a wager of three thousand dollars, to run 
upon a level road, against the swiftest horse that could be pj'oduced. 
This machine Evans named the Oructor Amphibolis, which is 

* This was the first application to the important but now common operation 
jf dredging. — American edition of Wood's Treatise on Rail Roads. 



OLIVER EVANS. 79 

believed to have been the first application, in America, of steam 
power to the propelling of land carriages. 

On the 25th of September, 1804, Evans submitted to the consi- 
deration of the Lancaster turnpike company, a statement of the 
costs and profits of a steam carriage to cany one hundred barrels 
of flour, fifty miles in twenty-four hours ; tending to show, that one 
such steam carriage would make more nett profits than ten wagons, 
drawn by five horses each, on a good turnpike road, and offering 
to build one at a very low price. His address closed as follows : 
*' It is too much for aii individual to put in operation every improve- 
ment which he may invent. I have no doubt but that my engines 
wiU propel boats against the current of the Mississippi, and wagons 
on tm-npike roads, with great profit. I now call upon those whose 
interest it is, to carry this mvention into effect. All which is re- 
spectfully submitted to your consideration." Little or no attention 
was paid to the offer. 

Had Evans received the patronage and pecuniary assistance 
that fell to the lot of Fulton, there is no doubt but he might have 
shown steamboats in operation fifteen or twenty years previous 
to the successful experiments of that ingenious individual. This 
probabihty is strengthened by the fact, that his engine, the first* 
ever invented on the high-pressure principle, is the only one that 
can be apphed on railways, and is now in universal use on the 
Mississippif and other rapid rivers, where great power is required. 

* " It is scarcely necessary to mention to the American reader, that the claim 
respecting the high pressure steam and locomotive engines to which the English 
assert, is entirely without foundation. The appUcation of steam in this manner 
and to these purposes had, indeed, been contemplated, but never reduced to 
practice until the experiments alluded to. In early life, Mr. Evans sent Mr. 
Joseph Sampson to England with the drawings and specifications of his steam 
engines, &c. They were exhibited to numerous engineers, and his plans were 
copied by Messrs. Vivian and Trevithick, without any acknowledgment : the 
latter persons acquired fame and fortune, while the ingenious, bui eccentric 
Evans, died poor, neglected, and broken-hearted. Fitch, Fulton, and Evans, 
exhibit a singular coincidence in their history. Posterity will, at least, render 
them the tardy recompense of justice. America may, therefore, claim the invention 
of locomotive engines with even more justice than that of steamboats, — inventions 
which are destined to revolutionize the commerce and defence of nations." — 
Amer. Edit, of V^ood's Treatise on Railroads. 

t " Mr. Evans wrote in 1802 to gentlemen in Kentucky, informing them he 
had got his engine in motion, which he had long before invented, for propelUng 
boats and carriages. These letters were shown to Captain James M'Keaver, 
who associated with Mr. Louis Valcourt, to buUd a steamboat to ply between 
New Orleans and Natchez. Valcourt came to Philadelphia to employ Mr. Evans 
to make a steam engine, whUe the captain should build a boat eighty feet keel, 
and eighteen feet beam. Two of Mr. Evans' company of workmen went with 
the engine to meet the boat at New Orleans, to set it up, which they completed, 
and the boat was ready for experiment ; but by this time the water had subsided, 
and left the boat half a mile from the water : their money being expended, their 
credit exhausted, and the river not expected to rise in less than six months ! la 

4* 



80 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

While Evans' conceptions respecting the power of steam reflect 
the highest credit upon his sagacity and talent, his predictions of 
its application may well be termed prophetic. In some of his 
writings, published in the early part of the present century, he ra. 
marks : " The time will come when people will travel in stages, 
moved by steam engines, from one city to another, almost as fast 
as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Passing through the 
air with such velocity, changing the scene in such rapid succession, 
will be the most rapid exhilarating exercise. A carriage (steam) 
will set out from Washington in the morning, the passengers will 
breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia, and sup in New York 
the same day. To accomplish this, two sets of railways will be 
laid, so nearly level as not in any way to deviate more than two 
degrees from a horizontal line, made of wood or iron, or smooth 
paths of broken stone or gravel, with a rail to guide the carriages 
so that they may pass each other in different directions, and travel 
by night as well as by day. Engines will drive boats ten or twelve 
miles per hour, and there will be many hundred steamboats run- 
ning on the Mississippi, as predicted years ago." 

After a lapse of years, as the improvements in the manufacture 
of flour gradually came into popular use, the inducements to in- 
fringe upon Evans' rights increased, until he was obliged to appeal 
for redress to the United States circuit court of Pennsylvania, but, 
through some informality in the patent, an unfavorable decision 
was given. Thus was he deprived of all means of recovering 
what was so justly due. Agreeably to the request of counsel, he 
then petitioned congress for a new patent. In stating his case, he 
observed, " that he had been at a great expense in publishing and 
disseminating these inventions, travelling either by himself or agents 

this predicament, Mr. William Donaldson offered them money to take the engine 
out of the boat, and set it to drive a saw-mill, that could go only by the waters 
of the river overflowing its banks, and was then standing. Their necessities 
compelled them to accept the offer. When they got the saw-mill going, they 
wrote that to their astonishment the engine was sawing three thousand feet of 
boards per day of twelve hours, which had been selling at the enormous price 
of fifty to sixty dollars per one thousand feet ; that they were now convinced 
there could be no doubt that the steamboat would have succeeded beyond their 
expectations ; that they would soon retrieve their losses, and would order an- 
other engine for the boat. But, alas ! their fair prospects were soon blasted ; 
for there, too, were some of the wise opposers of improvements. This mill was 
likely to deprive some who sawed lumber by hand of profitable jobs, and it was 
set on fire ; the two first attempts the fire was discovered in time to be extin- 
guished ; but in the third, those ivfernal incendiaries had like to have succeeded 
not only in destroying the mill, but with it those who had slept in it, to guard it. 
Thus were two noble and enterprising men rained, in the most laudable attempts 
to establish steamboats on the Mississippi. They had expended fifteen thousand 
dollars, and would have succeeded three or four years before Fulton and Living- 
ston, out for the reasons above stated." — Patent Right Oppression Exposed. 



OLIVER EVANS. 81 

for thirteen years, throughout the country, from state to state, and 
from mill to mill, to instruct workmen in their manufacture, and 
millers their use : and in tliis way had expended the small fees 
which were received from those who had generously and freely 
paid for their license." These arguments were so clearly founded 
on justice, that government could not but listen to his claims, and 
the petition was granted, Januaiy 21, 1808. 

Ere long, a memorial was presented to congress by John Wor- 
thington, Elisha Tyson, and other interested millers, against Oliver 
Evans, stating " that the public had been grossly deceived in re- 
gard to Evans being the original inventor of his patented mill 
machines ; for, so far from having invented all, he was not the 
original inventor of any of them : and that they could not believe 
that those in authority intended to let loose upon the community 
this exorbitant monopolist with so grievous and despotic a power. 
They therefore petitioned to have the subject once more taken 
into consideration." Evans immediately presented a counter me- 
morial, in which he completely proved the falsity of their state- 
ments, and the interested motives of his opponents. Independent 
of this, some of the most prominent* individuals in the community, 
on this and other occasions, came forward unsolicited with their 
testimony in his behalf. In the result, Evans was sustained. 

* The following, among other statements, was furnished by the well-known 
editor of Niles' Register, on the occasion of some of Mr. Evans' lawsuits : — 

" The subscriber, unsolicited by, and unknown to Oliver Evans, feels it due 
to truth and justice to state his recollections of the mill machinery. He well 
remembers, when at the Brandywine mills, they used to hoist the flour from the 
lower story to the loft, in large buckets or tubs, tilled by shovels from the chests 
into wliich the flour fell from the millstones : he has also frequently seen a man 
employed at these mills in heaping the flour over the hopper to let it pass into 
the bolting cloth below. Bom in the neighborhood of these mills, and passing 
his infancy and youth at Wilmington, within half a mile of them ; and going 
there to swim and to skate, as well as for other juvenile amusements, the place 
presenting delightful advantages for their enjoyment, he has passed through 
those mills, or some of them, many hundred times before and since the improve 
ments were introduced. His young mind was much pleased to observe the little 
buckets (the elevator,) supplying the place of the large one, above alluded to; 
and he was much amused to see the labors of the hopper-hoy, that spread, cooled, 
and collected the meal, without manual labor, to the spot where it was wanted ; 
nor was he less agreeably surprised at the operation of the conveyor, that, while 
1 cooled the flour, passed it on to the place where the elevator caught it. He 
also recollects to have heard it stated that the introduction of this machinery 
would throw more than twenty persons out of employ at Brandywine; and 
always understood that these innovations on the old mode of manufacturing flour 
were made by Oliver Evans. 

" While writing the above, an old schoolmate is at my elbow, who has pre- 
cisely the same recollections. Neither of us pretend to know that Oliver Evans 
really invented those things ; but are certain that common fame gave him the 
credit of them at the time they were introduced at the Brandywine mills. 

" H. NiLES, 

" Baltimore, Feb. 10, 1813. ' " Editor of the Re);ister." 



82 AMERICAN MECHANICS 

A few years subsequent to his marriage, Mr. Evans removed to 
Philadelphia, where he finally established an iron foundry and 
steam factoiy. Here he prepared his two works for the press, viz. 
the Young Millwright's and the Young Steam Engineer's Guides, — 
productions every way worthy of their author. In 1810, his two 
sons-in-law, Messrs. James Rush and David Muhlenburg, joined 
and continued in business with him until the time of his decease, 
which took nlace from an inflammation of the lungs, April 21st, 
1819. 




SAMUEL SLATER. 



SAMUEL SLATER, 

THE FATHER OF THE ABIERICAN COTTON MANUFACTURES. 



Birth. — Is apprenticed to the partner of Arkwright in the business of cotton 
spinning. — Fondness for experiments in machinery. — Improves the " heart 
motion." — Industry. — Appointed overseer. — Anecdote.— Forms the idea of 
coming to America. — Is obliged to leave secretly. — Adventures in London. — 
Sails for the United States. — Obtains a temporary employment. — Dispiriting 
results of the attempts to establish the cotton manufacture previous to his 
arrival. — Applies to Moses Brovm.— Visits Pawtucket. — Enters into the cotton 
business with Messrs. Almy and Brown.— Low state of manufactures.— Dis- 
appointment. — Agrees to erect the Arkwright patents. — Affecting anecdote. — 
Forms a tender attachment. — Builds the " Old Mill" at Pawtucket. — Preju- 
dice. — Prosperity. — Extension of the cotton manufacture. — Establishes the 
first American Sunday school. — Character. — Conclusion of his domestic his- 
tory. — Death. — Tribute to his memory. 

We, of the present day, in witnessing the extent and variety 
of our manufactures, can scarcely realize the low state in which 
they were, some forty or fifty years since : nor, without investi- 
gation, can we form any conception of the difficulties incident to 
their establishment. In none were they so formidable as in the 
cotton manufacture : and it is judged that he., who forsook the 
endearments of home for a land of strangers, to seek its estab- 
lishment among us, certainly claims a place amid the other char- 
acters that comprise this volume. 

The subject of this memoir* was born at Belper, in Derbyshire, 
England, June 9, 1768. His father was one of those independent 
yeomanry who farm their own lands, forming a distinct class from 
the tenantry. Young Slater received the advantages of an ordi- 
naiy English education ; and while at school, manifested a general 
fondness for study, but more particularly for that of arithmetic, one 
by far the most important in disciplining the mind for the business 
of Ufe — a talent almost universal with those who become distin- 
guished for mechanical ingenuity. 

The cotton spinning business, at this time in its infancy, was 
carried on in the neighborhood by Jedediah Strutt, the partner of 

* See White's " Memoir of Slater ; connected with a History of the Rise and 
Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in England and America : with Remarks 
on the Moral Influence of Manufactories in the United States ;" — a work con 
taining a great deal of valuable and interesting information. 



36 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

the celebrated Arkwright. Mr. Slater having frequent intercourse 

with Mr. Strutt, made an agreement with him to take his son into his 
eiTiployment. In August of the same year, young Slater lost his 
father ; and thus, at the early age of fourteen, was left his own 
master. A short time subsequent to this event, his employer 
asked him if he intended to continue in the business. Previous 
to giving a decisive answer, he inquired his opinion of its perma- 
nency. The reply was, that it would not probably continue as 
good as then, but, under proper management, would doubtless 
always be a fair business. So httle did even its founders foresee 
the vast extension to which it was designed, and the astonishmg 
change in politics, commerce, and the relations of states to each 
other, which have been the consequence. Indeed, all the cotton 
manufacture of England was then confined to a small district in 
Derbyshire, and its whole amount not greater than that done at 
the present day in a single village in New England. 

Young Slater early manifested the bent of his mind, frequently 
spending his Sundays alone in making experiments in machinery; 
and for six months was without seeing any of his friends, though 
living only a mile from home. This was not from a want of fiUal 
or fraternal affection, but solely through devotion to his employ, 
ment. As showing the propensity and expertness of his mind at 
this period, the following circumstance is related : — His master in 
vain endeavored to improve the " heart motion " so as to raise or 
enlarge the yarn in the middle, in order to contain more on the 
bobbin. Slater seeing through the difficulty, went to work, and 
the next Sunday (his only spare time) succeeded in that, which his 
employer, with all his ingenuity, was unable to effect. This gen. 
eral application on Slater's part was not without its benefits ; his 
employers gained so much confidence in his business habits and 
industry, that during the last four or five years of his stay with 
them he was engaged as an overseer. This general oversight, 
with his close habits of observation, eventually proved of incalcu- 
lable service. 

Slater was fortunate in having for his employer a man of so 
much stability and integrity, who took a great deal of pains to 
properly mould his character and habits. He was, like all other 
business men, a strict economist in that which related to his pro- 
fession, and would often enforce his maxims on his young protege. 
As an illustration, the following anecdote is related : — When 
Slater was yet a boy, he passed by some loose cotton on the floor ; 
Mr. Strutt called him back, with a request to pick it up, for it was 
by attending to such small things that great fortunes were accumu< 
lated ; at the same time observing to his wife, by way of impre 



SAMUEL SLATER. 87 

ing it more strongly on the mind of his favorite apprentice, that he 
" was afraid that Samuel would never be rich." 

Slater faithfully served his indenture with Mr. Strutt. Thia 
accomplisliment of his full time was characteristic with him, and 
was praiseworthy and beneficial, as it laid the foundation of his 
adaptation to business, and finally to its perfect knowledge. 

He early turned his attention to the United States, as affording 
a vast field for enterprise in his department. This originated 
partially from an apprehension that the busiiaess would be ruined 
by competition in his native country, and, with this idea, he would 
seek every means to gain information. The motives which 
finally induced him to leave, were the various rumors which 
reached Derbyshire of the anxiety of the different state govern- 
ments here to encourage manufactures. Slater was more strongly 
confirmed in this determination on observing a newspaper account 
of a hberal bounty granted by the legislature of Pennsylvania to a 
person who had imperfectly succeeded in constructing a carding 
machine, to make rolls for jennies ; and the knowledge, too, that a 
society had been authorized by the same ."legislature for the promo- 
tion of manufactures. 

Having made due preparation, he secretly, and without divulging 
his plans to even a single individual, bid farewell to the home of 
his childhood. What were his feelings in gazing, for the last time, 
on the countenances of his mother, brothers, and sisters, only those 
who have been in similar circumstances can imagine ; his young 
heart was full, but a youthful ambition fired his soul, and enabled 
him to overcome his emotions. While waiting in London until 
the vessel was ready, he wrote to his friends, informing them of 
his plans, but, for obvious reasons, did not put the letter into the 
office until ready to embark. 

The ship being ready, Mr. Slater embarked, Sept. 1st, 1789, 
being at that time only a few months over twenty-one years of 
age. He was aware of the danger incurred in leaving England 
as a machinist, and therefore took no drawings of any sort, trust- 
ing solely to the powers of his memory to enable him to construct 
the most complicated of machinery. Indeed, he had no writing 
with him excepting his indenture, which was his sole introduction 
to the western world. After, a tedious passage of sixty-six days, 
he arrived in New York. Here he obtained a temporary employ- 
ment, until something permanent should arise. 

Previous to Slater's arrival in America, every attempt to spin 
cotton warp or twist, or any other yarn, by water power, had 
totally failed, and every effort to import the patent machinery of 
England had proved abortive. Much interest had been excited in 



88 AMERICAK MECHANICS. j 

Philadelphia, New York, Beverly, Massachusetts, and Providence J 
but it was found impossible to compete with the superior machin. i 
eiy of Derbyshire.* Distrust and despondency had affected the f 

* At a meeting held in Boston a few years since, on the subject of opening a j 
railroad to Albany, the infant difficulties of our manufactures were thus adverted j 
to by Mr. Hallet :— \ 

_ " We talk now of the future, in regard to railways, with doubt, as of an expe- '; 
riment yet to be tested, and many look upon the calculations of the sanguine as 
mere speculating dreams. Here is a new avenue about to be opened to the de- 
velopment of resources, and yet men hesitate to go forward. Let us test what ■ 
we can reasonably anticipate in this, by what we know has happened, in the \ 
development of resources once deemed quite as visionary, through another me- j 
dium of industry and enterprise — domestic manufactures. There is not an adult "j 
among us who cannot remember the time when it was a source of mortification | 
to be dressed in homespun. Now, our own fabrics are among the best and 
richest stuffs of every day consumption, and the products of our looms are pre- ; 
ferred even in foreign countries. Forty years ago, who would have dared to : 
conjure up the visions of such manufacturing cities as Lowell, and Fall River, 
your Ware, Waltham, and the hundreds of flourishing villages which now con- . ] 
stitute the most prosperous communities in this commonwealth? How small I 
and feeble was the beginning of all this ! In 1787, the first cotton mill in this 1 
state was got up in Beverly, by John Cabot and others, and in three years it was | 
nearly given up, in consequence of the difficulties which the first beginning of i 
the development of the vast resources of domestic industry, in our state, had to i 
encounter. I hold in my hand," said Mr. Hallet, " a document of unconmion ' 
interest, on this subject, found in the files of the Massachusetts senate ; which ,; 
will show the early struggles of domestic manufactures, and the doubts enter- , 
tained of their success, more forcibly than any fact that can be stated. It is the 
petition of the proprietors of the little Beverly cotton mill, in 1790, for aid from ' 
the legislature to save them from being compelled to abandon the enterprise I 
altogether. Tlris petition was referred to the committee of both houses for the 1 
encouragement of arts, agriculture, and manufactures, (of which Nathaniel ' 
Gorham was chairman ;) and with all the lights which that intelligent commit- I 
tee then had on this subject, destined to become one of the greatest means of \ 
developing resources ever opened to national prosperity, they cautiously reported ; 
that ' from the best information we can obtain, we are of opinion that the said I 
manufactory is of great public utility. But owing to the great expenses incurred ' 
in providing machines, and other incidents usually attending a new business, the , 
said manufactory is upon the decline, and unless some public assistance can be ■ 
afforded, is in danger of failing. Your committee therefore report, as their | 
opinion, that the petitioners have a grant of one thousand pounds, to be raised , 
in a lotteiy :' on condition that they give bonds that the money be actually ap- , 
propriated in such a way as will most effectually promote the ' manufacturing' ; 

of cotton piece goods in this commonwealth Where now is the little i 

Beverly cotton mill ? And what has been the mighty development of resources 
in domestic industry in forty-five years, since the date of that petition, when the '■ 
wisest men among us had got no farther than to a belief that the said manufac- 
tory was of great public utility ! Is there any vision of the great public utility of ; 
railways," said Mr. Hallet, " which can go beyond what now is, and what will . 
be in forty years, that can exceed in contrast what we know once was and now 
is, in the development of resources by the investment of capital and industry in ; 
domestic manutactures ? The petitioners for the little Beverly cotton mill were ' 
doubtless deemed to be absurdly extravagant, when they hinted that the manu- ; 
facture of cottons would one day not only afford a supply for domestic consump- j 
tion, but a staple for exportation. But what do we now see ? Our domestic | 
fabrics find a market in every clime, and vessels, lying at your wharves, are i 
receiving these goods to export to Calcutta. j 

" The world is beginning to understand the true uses of wealth, to develop ; 



SAMUEL SLATER. 89 

strongest minds, disappointment and repeated loss of property had 
entirely disheartened these pioneers in the production of home- 
spun cloth. To the subject of this memoir belongs the honor of 
having solely, by his own personal knowledge and skill, constructed 
and put in motion the whole series of Arkwright's patents, and in 
such perfect operation, as to produce as good yarn and cotton 
cloth of various descriptions as the EngUsh. 

In the course of Slater's inquiries for the most ehgible place 
as the scene of his first essay in America, he was informed that 
attempts had lately been made in Providence and its vicinity, 
under the auspices of Moses Brown, who was in want of a manager 
in spinnmg. He immediately addressed a letter to Mr. Brown, 
and received in reply a very urgent request to render his services. 
In this letter he offered Slater, if he could work the machinery 
they had on hand, all the profits of the business, and held out the 
promise of the credit, as well as the advantages of perfecting the 
first water mill in America. 

Arrangements were entered into between Almy, Brown, and 
Slater, to commence cotton spinning at Pa\vtucket. 

the resources of the country ; and it is in great enterprises, which benefit the 
public more than those immediately concerned in them, that we have a practical 
demonstration of the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. 
Much is said, and more feared, about the divisions of the rich and the poor. 
But in truth, in our happy institutions, we need have no poor, forming a distinct 
class among the citizens. Where is your populace, your rabble? is an inquiry 
which has often puzzled the foreigner who has passed through our streets when 
thronged by a multitude. We have no populace — no rabble, but free and inde- 
pendent citizens. What has made them so ? The development of our resources, 
wiiat has stopped the tide of emigration that once threatened to depopulate New 
England ? The development of our resources. Go on developing these resources, 
and there need be no fear of setting the poor against the rich, for there will 
be no poor to set against them. All will be rich, for they will have enough ; 
and no man is in reality any richer for possessing what he cannot use. When 
men of capital are found hoarding it, holding it back from enterprises, and cau 
tious of doing any thing to develop the resources of a community, there is then 
just cause to fear the operation of unequal and injurious distinctions. Take 
from industry and enterprise the means of acquiring wealth, cut off commerce, 
manufactures, canals, and railways, and you will lay the surest foundation pos- 
sible for the despotism of one class over another. But open all these great 
resources to all — extend your facUities of intercourse throughout the country, 
and you cannot repress the energies of men ; you cannot keep them poor long 
enough to mark them as a class. Your gradations iri society will be stepped 
over, forward and backward, so often, that no distinct line can be kept np. This 
is the vast moral power, which is exerted on society by the investment of capital 
for public benefit, without unjust privileges ; in great projects. Here are the 
true uses of wealth, in a government like ours, and this great specific lies at the 
bottom of the philosophy of our political economy. Develop the resources oi 
the country— place the means of wealth within the reach of industry, and you 
produce the happy medium in society. All will then move forward evenly, as 
on the level of a railroad, with occasional inclined planes and elevations, but 
none that can stop the powerful locomotives which impel forward every New 
Englander — enterprise and moral energy." 



90 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

A few days subsequent to his arrival in Providence, Mr. Brown 
took him to view the machinery in a mill which he had erected 
at Pawtucket. On examination, Mr. Slater felt dispirited ; and 
shaking his head, observed, " these will not do — they are good 
for nothing in their present condition, nor can they be made to 
answer." After various disappointments, it was proposed that he 
should erect the series of machines called the Arkwright patents. 
This he promised to perform, provided he was furnished with a 
man to work on wood, who should be under bonds not to steal the 
patterns, or disclose the nature of the works. " Under my pro- 
posals," says he, " if I do not make as good yarn as they do in 
England, I will have nothing for my services, but will throw the 
whole of what I have attempted over the bridge." 

On the 21st of December, 1790, Mr. Slater started three cards, 
drawing, roving, and seventy -two spindles, which were operated 
by an old fulling-mill water-wheel in a clothier's shop at the western 
end of Pawtucket bridge. In this place they continued the spin- 
ning until the subsequent erection of the " old mill," so called. 
The difficulties under which these first measures towards the 
establishment of the business were pursued, can hardly be con- 
ceived at the present day, even by a practical inachinist or manu- 
facturer. The basin of the Narragansett bay, and the small, but 
invaluable streams that fall into it on every side, did not, at that 
early day, form, as they now do, a continuous hive of mechanical 
industry, enterprise, and skill, where every sort of material, and 
even the most minute subdivision of handicraft ingenuity, can be 
procured at will. There were no magazines or workmen. With 
the exception of scythes, anchors, horse-shoes, ploughs, nails, 
cannon, shot, and a few other articles of iron, there was no 
staple manufacture for exportation. The mechanism then applied 
in their manufacture was almost as simple as the first impulse of 
water or steam. Even the side motion of the card machine had 
not been adopted ; the first hint for its use having been obtained 
several years after. Although Mr. Slater had full confidence in 
his own remembrance of every part, and ability to perfect the 
work, he found it next to an impossibility to get those who could 
make any thing like his models. But there are few difficulties 
that can discourage an ingenious, enterprising, and determined 
mind. The various materials required for the first machines were 
collected at much expense from different parts of the country, and 
young Slater's own skill and perseverance supplied the place of 
other mechanics. 

It was now, when he flattered himself with an entire success, 
that an unforeseen difficulty arose. After the frames were ready 



SAMUEL SLATER. 91 

for operation, he prepared the cotton and started the cards, but it 
rolled up on the top cards instead of passing through the small 
cylinder. This was the cause of the greatest perplexity, and days 
were passed in the utmost anxiety as to the final result. On 
advising with his assistant and pointing out the defect, he per- 
ceived that the teeth of the cards were not crooked enough ; as 
they had no good card leather, the punctures were made by hand, 
and consequently were too large, so that the teeth fell back from 
their proper place. Luckily it occurred to them to beat the teeth 
with a piece of grindstone ; this gave them the proper crook, and, 
to their joy and relief, the machinery worked perfectly. 

On Slater's arrival in Pawtucket, he was introduced into the 
worthy family of Mr. Oziel Wilkinson as a boarder. These 
people were Quakers, and became greatly interested in the young 
stranger ; they have since described his conduct during the diffi- 
culty just alluded to. When leaning his head over the fire-place, 
they heard him utter deep sighs, and frequently observed the tears 
roll from his eyes. He said but little of his fears and apprehen- 
sions ; but Mrs. Wilkinson, perceiving his distress, with a motherly 
kindness inquired, " Art thou sick, Samuel ?" He then explained 
to them the nature of his trial, and showed the point on which he 
was most tender. " If," said he, " I am frustrated in my carding 
machine, they will think me an impostor." He was apprehensive 
that no suitable cards could be obtained, short of England ; and 
from thence none were allowed to be exported. 

While in this family, a tender attachment arose between him- 
self and one of its female members, Miss Hannah Wilkinson. 
He was happy in fixing his affections so soon on one who loved 
him, and one so worthy ; this was the loadstone that served to 
bind him to the place, when every thing else appeared dreaiy and 
discouraging. Her parents being Friends, could not consistently 
give consent to her marriage out of the society, and talked of 
sending her away some distance to school, which occasioned Mr. 
Slater to say, " You may send her where you please, but I will 
follow her to the ends of the earth." Though absorbed in per- 
plexing business, his hours of relaxation were cheering ; he spent 
them in telling Hannah and her sister the story of his early life, 
the tales of his home, of his family connections, and of his 
father land. 

This introduction was one of the favorabfe circumstances that 
finally secured his success. Here was found a father and mother, 
who were kind to him as to their own son. He was not distrust- 
ful of his ability to support a family — did not wait to grow rich 
before marriage, but was willing to take his bride for better and 



92 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

for worse ; and she received the young stranger as the man of 
her choice, the object of her first love. This connection with 
Oziel Wilkinson was of great service to him, as a stranger, inex- 
perienced in the world beyond his peculiar sphere. Besides, it is 
well known, that sixty years since, the contrast of character of 
New England men and manners, and other peculiarities, were 
very great between the two countries. No one knows the heart 
of a stranger but he who has been from home in a strange land, 
without an old acquaintance, without a tried friend to whom he 
could unbosom his anxieties — without confidence in those around 
him, and others without confidence towards him. Mr. Slater's 
own experience taught him ever to treat the numerous strangers 
who flocked to him for advice, assistance, or employment, with 
marked attention, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 

Early in 1793, Almy, Brown, and Slater built a small factory 
in Pawtucket, which is now called the " Old Mill," where they 
slowly added to their machinery as the sales of yarn increased. 
The disposal of the yarn in Inarket was at first found as difiicult 
as the first construction of the machinery for its manufacture. 
Such are the prejudices of mankind, and their unwillingness to 
break over long-established habits and opinions, that, superior as 
was this yarn in material and durability to that imported, people 
would hardly be convinced, even by actual experiment, that it was 
possible to make good cotton yarn at home. That made by these 
pioneers in American manufacture would sometimes be on hand 
in large quantities, or could be got rid of only as " truck," whilst 
the English made yarn was eagerly sought for at a much higher 
price in money. In a note found among Mr. Slater's papers, we 
are informed that when the first seventy-two spindles and prepara- 
tion had been at work only twenty months, " they had several 
thousand pounds of yarn on hand, notwithstanding every exertion 
was used to weave it up and sell it." The same difficulty was 
experienced in the sale of yarn at intervals, until the introduction 
of the power loom. Slow as was the advancement of spinning 
until twenty years after its fii-st establishment, it never attained 
the advantage of a quick remunerating staple business until the 
loom was placed beside the spinning frame, and propelled by the 
same power. The power loom, twenty or thirty years ago, did 
for the spinning frame what has since been done for the loom by 
the printery, — it furnished an immediate and ready consumption, 
and a market ready for its products.* 

* As an evidence of the vast improvements in the manufacture and culture 
of cotton, it is stated, that at the time of Slater's arrival in this country, good 
cotton cloth was fifty cents a yard, and never leis than forty. 



SAMUEL SLATER. 95 

It was only in 1799 that the sales of yarn became sufficiently 
promising to induce another company to set up the second cotton 
mill estabhshment in Rhode Island, and Messrs. Almy, Brown, 
and Slater were encouraged to make very considerable additions 
to the machinery in the " Old Mill." Their subsequent business, 
up to the year 1806, turned their attention to a more extended 
investment in spinning, and from thenceforth it was continually on 
the increase. 

Mv. Slater was a philanthropist in its most important sense, 
and ever manifested an interest in the welfare of those under his 
charge. No sooner did he find his business collected young 
people and children who were destitute of the means of instruc- 
tion, than he commenced establishing a Sunday school in his own 
house, sometimes instructing his scholars himself, but generally 
hiring a person to perform that duty. This was the first Sunday 
school in the United States ; and what appears to us not a little 
singular, was regarded by some as an unhallowed innovation ; — 
one young man, the son of a clergyman, was at first deterred from 
becoming a teacher, because his father considered it a profanation 
of the Sabbath ! 

The impulse given to industi-y and production by the cotton 
manufacture has not been confined to one branch alone, but has 
been felt m every kind of employment useful to the community. We 
need not in this place enlarge upon the close affinity and mutual de- 
pendence of these various employments ; they are obvious to every 
iTiind which has acquired the habit of tracing results to their causes 
in the endless relations of society. As a general fact, it is un- 
doubtedly true, that the advancement of our country in the manu- 
factures of wool and iron, has been greatly accelerated by the cotton 
manufacture ; and that those branches of industry have always 
been deeply affected by the temporary reverses which this branch 
has experienced. 

Mr. Slater was for many years, until the time of his death, con- 
cerned in woollen and iron, as well as cotton manufactories, and his 
observation and sagacity never suffered him to question the iden- 
tity of their interests. There was another point in which bis 
views and sentiments, though decried by some as too liberal ani 
disinterested in any matter of business, were truly wise and saga- 
cious, and fully concurred in by his partners. He always main- 
tained that legislative protection would be as beneficial to himself 
as to others ; to those already established in business and possess- 
ing an ample capital, as^ those just commencing, with little or no 
means. This opinion, notwithstanding all the huckstering calculations 
and short sighted views of would-be mononolists, was certainly the 

5 



96 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

best for himself. Monopoly in this country, by any men, or set of 
men, subject to our laws, is unattaiziable, either by legislation or 
combination. It is, or ought to be, excluded from all the calcula- 
tions of a sober and practical business mind. There was, there- 
fore, nothing in their preoccupation of the cotton business that gave 
them an advantage over other domestic manufacturers, except their 
skill and capital. Of these advantages legislation could or would 
not deprive them ; and with them on their side, they could extend 
their investments as fast, certainly with as much profit, as those 
who were without, or with capital only. In petitions and other 
means adopted by the manufacturing districts of our country, to 
obtain this protection, Mr. Slater was ever a prominent and efficient 
person. 

Such are the outlines of the business life of a man, whose skiU 
and knowledge of detail was unrivalled, in a business wliich, up to 
the time of his appearance, was unknown in this country, — whose 
commercial views were of the most liberal and enlightened char- 
acter, — whose energy, perseverance, and untiring dihgence, aided 
in his early efforts by the money and countenance of those who 
justly appreciated his merits, and confidently anticipated his emi- 
nence, have triumphed over obstacles which would have discouraged 
others ; have given a new direction to the industry of his adopted 
country, and opened a new and boundless field to its enterprise. 
It has rarely fallen to the lot of any single individual to be made 
an instrument, under Providence, of so much and such widely dif- 
fused benefit to his fellow men, as this man has conferred upon 
them, without any pretension to high-wrought philanthropy in the 
ordinary, unostentatious pursuit of that profession to which he had 
been educated. 

Yet, unpretendmg as he was, and noiseless in that sublimated 
charity which is now so fashionable and predominant, his sympathy 
for the distressed, and his kindness and good-will for all, were ever 
warm, active, practical sentiments ; based upon steadfast principles, 
and aiming at the greatest attainable measure of good. In the 
relief of immediate and pressing want, he was prompt and liberal ; in 
the measures which he adopted for its prevention in future, he 
evinced paternal feeling and judicious forecast. Employment and 
liberal pay to the able bodied promoted regularity and cheerfulness 
in the house, and drove the wolf from its door. " Direct charity," 
he has been heard to say, " places its recipient under a sense of 
obligation which trenches upon that independent spirit that all 
should maintain. It breaks his pride, and he soon learns to beg 
and eat the bread of idleness without a blush. But employ and 
pay him, and he receives and emoys with an honest pride, that 



SAMUEL SLA.TER. 97 

which he knows he has earned, and could have received for the 
same amount of labor from any other employer." It would be 
well for all communities if such views on the subject of pauperism, 
were generally adopted and carried into practice. 

It is hardly necessary to state of one who has done so much busi- 
ness, and with so great success, that his business habits and 
morals were of the liighest character. The punctual performance 
of every engagement, in its true spirit and meaning, was, wdth 
him, a point of honor, from which no consideration of temporary or 
prospective advantage would induce him to depart, — ^from which 
no sacrifice of money or feeling was sufficient to deter him. 
There was a method and arrangement in his transactions, by which 
every tiling was duly and at the proper time attended to. Nothing 
was hurried from its proper place, nothing postponed beyond its 
proper time. It was thus that transactions, the most varied, intri- 
cate, and extensive, deeply affecting the interests of three adjoming 
states, and extending their influence to thousands of mdividuals, 
proceeded from their first inception to their final consummation, 
with an order, a regularity and certainty, truly admirable and in- 
structive. The master's mind was equally present and apparent in 
eveiy thing, from the imposing mass of the total to the most minute 
particular of its component parts. 

Mr. Slater's private and domestic character was without a blem- 
ish. He was twice married, and had four children, all sons, by 
his first wife, and at his death left a pious and amiable widow, 
formerly Mrs. Parkinson, of Philadelphia, with an ample dowry, 
to receive from Ins family that protection and affection which her 
motherly attention to them has so well deserved. He was a sin- 
cere and practical Christian, and died, April 21st. 1835, in the 
cheering hopes and consolations which Christianity alone imparts. 

We conclude this memoir with the following tribute to his mem- 
ory, which is in substance the remarks of Mr. Tristam Burgess, in 
his address before the Rhode Island Agricultural Society : — " Forty 
years ago there was not a spindle wrought by water on this side 
the Atlantic. Since then, how immense the capital by which spin- 
ning and weaving machinery are moved ! How many, how great, 
how various, the improvements ! The farmers of Flanders erected 
a statue in honor of him who introduced into their country the 
culture of the potato. What shall the people of New England 
do for him who first brought us the knowledge of manufacturing 
cloth, by machineiy moved by water ? In England, he would in 
life be ornamented with a peerage, in death, lamented by a monu- 
ment in Westminster Abbey. The name of Slater will be remem- 
bered as one of our greatest public benefactors. Let not the rich, 



98 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

in his adopted country, envy the products of his labor — his exten- 
sive opulence — his fair and elevated character. Let the poor rise 
jp and call him blessed ; for he has introduced a species of industry 
into our countiy, which furnishes them with labor, food, clothing, 
and habitation." 




ELI WHITNEY. 



ELI WHITNEY, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON GIN. 



Birth. — Anecdotes of his youth. — Manufactures nails. — Teaches school. — By his 
own exertions prepares for college. — Anecdotes of his college life. — Graduates. 
— Goes to Georgia as a teacher. — Disappointment. — Becomes an inmate in the 
family of Gen. Greene. — Ingenuity. — Low state of the cotton culture. — An in- 
troduction. — Old method of separating the cotton from the seed. — Invents the 
cotton gin. — Forms a co-partnership with Mr. Phineas Miller to manufacture 
gins. — Note, Description. — The first machine stolen. — Commencement of en- 
croachments. — Disastrous fire. — ^A trial. — Its unfortunate issue. — Gloomy pros- 
pects. — South Carolina purchases the patent right for that state. — Enters into 
a similar engagement with North Carolina and Tennessee. — South Carolina 
and Tennessee annul their contracts. — Increasing encroachments.- — South 
Carolina Legislature, of 1804, rescind the act of annulment. — Death of Mr. 
Miller.^Celebrated decision of Judge Johnson. — Lawsuits. — Commences 
manufacturing arms for government. — Difiiculties to be surmounted. — De- 
scription of the system. — Rejection of the memorial to congress for a renewal 
of the patent right on the cotton gin. — Marriage. — Death. — ^A comparison. — 
Character. 

To the efforts of Whitney, our country is indebted for the vahxe 
of her great staple. While the invention of the cotton gin has 
been the chief source of the prosperity of the southern planter, the 
northern manufacturer comes in for a large share of the benefit 
derived from the most important offspring of American ingenuity. 

Eli Whitney* was born in Westborough, Worcester county, 
Massachusetts, December 8th, 1765. His parents belonged to 
that respectable class in society, who, by the labors of husbandry, 
manage, by uniform industry, to provide well for a rising family, — 
a class from whom have arisen most of those who, in New Eng- 
land, have attained to high eminence and usefulness. 

The following incident, though trivial in itself, will serve to show 
at how early a period certain qualities, of strong feeling tempered 
by that discretion for which Mr. Whitney afterwards became dis- 
tinguished, began to display themselves. When he was six or 
seven years old, he had overheard the kitchen maid, in a fit of 
passion, calling his mother, who was in a delicate state of health, hard 
names, at which he expressed great displeasure to his sister. " She 

* Condensed from the able memoir by Professor Olmsted, published in the 
^wenty-first volume of Silliman's Journal. 



102 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

thought," said he, " that I was not big enough to know any thing ; 
but I can tell her, I am too big to hear her talk so about my mother. 
I think she ought to have a flogging, and if I loiew how to bring it 
about, she should have one." His sister advised him to tell their 
father. " No," he rephed, " that will not do ; it will hurt his feelings 
and mother's too ; and besides, its likely the girl will say she never 
said so, and that would make a quarrel. It is best to say nothing 
about it." 

Indications of his mechanical genius were likewise developed at 
a very early age. Of his early passion for such employments, his 
sister gives the following account. " Our father had a workshop, 
and sometimes made wheels, of different kinds, and chairs. He 
had a variety of tools, and a lathe for turning chair posts. This 
gave my brother an opportunity of learning the use of tools when 
very young. He lost no time, but as soon as he could handle 
tools he was always making something in the shop, and seemed 
not to like working on the farm. On a time, after the death of 
our mother, when our father had been absent from home two or 
three days, on his return, he inquired of the housekeeper, what the 
boys had been doing. She told him what B. and J. had been 
a^out. 'But what has Eli been doing?' said he. She replied, 
he had been making a fiddle. 'Ah! (added he despondingly) / 
fear Eli will have to take his portion in fiddles.'' He was at this 
time about twelve years old. His sister adds, that this fiddle was 
finished throughout, like a common violin, and made tolerable 
good music. It was examined by many persons, and all pronounced 
it to be a remarkable piece of work for such a boy to perform. 
From this time he was employed to repair violins, and had many 
nice jobs, which were always executed to the entire satisfaction, and 
often to the astonishment of his customers. His father's watch be- 
ing the greatest piece of mechanism that had yet presented itself to 
his observation, he was extremely desirous of examining its int^- Jor 
construction, but was not permitted to do so. One Sunday „orn. 
ing, observing that his father was going to meet*ig, and would 
leave at home the wonderful little machine, he immediately feigned 
illness as an apology for not going to church. As soon as the 
family were out of sight, he flew to the room where the watch 
hung, and taking it down, he was so delighted with its motions, 
that he took it to pieces before he thought of the consequences of 
his rash deed ; for his father was a stern parent, and punishment 
would have been the reward of his idle curiosity, had the mischief 
been detected. He, however, put the work all so neatly together, 
that his father never discovered his audacity until he himself told 
him, many years afterwards." 




BIRTH-PLACE OF WHITNEY, WTl STBO ROUGH, MASS. 



6* 



ELI WHITNEY 105 

Whitney lost his mother at an early age, and when he was thir- 
teen years old, his father married a second time. His step-mo- 
ther, among her articles of furniture, had a handsome set of table 
knives, that she valued very highly ; which our young mechanic 
observing, said to her, " I could make as good ones if I had 
tools, and I could make the necessary tools if I had a few 
common tools to make them with." His step-mother thought 
he was deriding her, and was much displeased ; but it so hap- 
pened, not long afterwards, that one of the knives got broken, and 
te made one exactly hke it in every respect, except the stamp on 
the blade. This he would hkewise have executed, had not the 
tools required been too expensive for his slender resources. 

When Whitney was fifteen or sixteen years of age, he suggested 
to his father an enterprise, which was an earnest of the similar 
undertakings m which he engaged on a far greater scale in late]" 
life. This being the time of the revolutionaiy war, nails were in 
great demand, and bore a high price. At that period, nails were 
made chiefly by hand, with httle aid from machinery. Young 
Whitney proposed to his father to procure him a few tools, and to 
permit Mm to set up the manufacture. His father consented, and 
he went steadily to work, and suffered nothing to divert him from 
his task until his day's work was completed. By extraordinaiy 
diUgence, he gained time to make tools for his own use, and to put 
in knife blades, and to perform many other curious httle jobs, 
which exceeded the skill of the country artisans. At this labori- 
ous occupation the enterprising boy wrought alone, with great suc- 
cess, and with much profit to his father, for two winters, pursuing 
the ordinary labors of the farm during the summers. At this time 
he devised a plan for enlarging his business and increasing his 
profits. He whispered his scheme to his sister, with strong in- 
junctions of secrecy ; and requesting leave of his father to go to a 
neighboring town, without specifying his object, he set out on horse- 
back in quest of a fellow laborer. Not finding one so easily as he 
had anticipated, he proceeded from town to town, with a persever- 
ance which was always a strong trait of his character, until at the 
distance of forty miles from home, he found such a workman as he 
desired. He also made his journey subservient to his improvement 
in mechanical skill, for he called at every workshop on his way, 
and gleaned all the information he could respecting the mechanic 
arts. 

At the close of the war, the business of making nails was no 
longer profitable ; but a fashion prevaihng among the ladies of 
fastening on their bonnets with long pins, he contrived to make 
those with such skill and dexterity, that he nearly monopolized the 



106 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

business, although he devoted to it only such seasons of leisure as 
he could redeem from the occupations of the farm, to which he 
now principally betook himself. He added to this article the 
manufacture of walking canes, which he made with pecuHar neat- 
ness. 

We are informed that he manifested an aptness for mathemati- 
cal calculations, and that when quite young was considered not 
only remarkable for his ingenuity, but for general information. 

From the age of nineteen, young Whitney conceived the idea 
of obtaining a liberal education ; and partly by the avails of his 
mechanical industry, and partly by teaching a village school, was 
enabled so far to surmount the difficulties thrown in his way, as to 
prepare himself for the freshman class in Yale coUege, which he 
entered in 1789. While a schoolmaster, the mechanic would 
often usurp the place of the teacher ; and the mind, too aspiring 
for such a sphere, was wandering off in pursuit of ^'•perpetual mo- 
tion.'''' At college his mechamcal propensity frequently showed 
itself. He successfully undertook on one occasion the repairing 
of some of the philosophical apparatus. On another, a carpenter 
being at work at the house where Whitney boarded, he solicited 
the permission to use his tools. The carpenter being unwilhng to 
trust him, only granted the request on the gentleman of the house 
promising to be responsible for the damages ; but no sooner had 
Whitney commenced operations, than the man, astonished, exclaim- 
ed, " There was one good mechanic spoiled when you went to 
college." Soon after taking his degree in the autumn of 1792, Mr. 
Whitney engaged with a Mr. B., of Georgia, to reside in his family 
as a private teacher. On his arrival he was informed that Mr. B. 
had employed another person, leaving him without resources or 
friends, save in the family of Gen. Greene, of Mulberry Grove, near 
Savannah, with whom he had formed an accidental acquaintance. 
These benevolent people, however, deeply interested themselves in 
his case, and hospitably offered him the privilege of making his 
home at their house, where he commenced the study of law. 

While residing there, Mrs. Greene was employed in embroidery, 
which is worked on a kind of frame, called a tambour. She com- 
plained of its bad construction, and observed it tore the delicate 
threads of her work. Mr. Whitney, eager for an opportunity to 
oblige his hostess, set himself to work and speedily produced a 
tambour frame on a plan entirely new, with which he presented 
her. Mrs. Greene and her family were much delighted with it, 
and considered it a wonderful piece of ingenuity. 

Not long after the family were visited by a party of gentlemen, 
consisting principally of officers who had served under the genera), 



ELI WHITNEY. 107 

in the revolutionary army. The conversation turning upon the 
state of agriculture, it was regretted that there was no means of 
cleaning the seed from the green seed cotton, which might other- 
wise be profitably raised on lands unsuitable for rice. But, until 
ingenuity could devise some machine which would grealy facilitate 
the process of cleaning, it was vain to think of raising cotton for 
market. Separating one pound of the clean staple from the seed 
ivas a day^s work for a woman ; but the time usually devoted to the 
picking of the cotton was the evening, after the labor of the field 
was over. Then the slaves, men, women, and children, were col- 
lected in circles with one, whose duty it was to rouse the dozing 
and quicken the indolent. While the company were engaged in 
this conversation, " Gentlemen," said Mrs. Greene, " apply to my 
young friend, Mr. Whitney, he can make any thing," at the same 
time showing them the tambour frame and several other articles 
which he had made. She introduced the gentlemen to Whitney 
himself, extolling his genius, and commending him to their notice 
and friendsliip. He modestly disclaimed all pretensions to me- 
chanical genius, and on their naming the object, rephed that he 
had never seen cotton seed in his hfe. Mrs. G. said to one of the 
gentlemen, " I have accomplished my aim, Mr. Whitney is a very 
desei-ving young man, and to brmg him into notice was my object. 
The interest which our friends now feel for him, will, I hope, lead to 
his getting some employment to enable him to prosecute the study 
of the law. " 

But no one foresaw the change that this interview was to make 
in the plan of his life. He immediately began upon the task of in- 
venting and constructing that machine, on which his future fame 
depended. Mr. Miller, to whom he communicated his design, 
warmly encouraged him in it, and gave him a room in his house, 
wherein to carry on his operations. Here he set himself to work, 
with the disadvantage of being obliged to manufacture his tools and 
draw his own wire, an article then not to be found in Savannah. 
Mr. Phineas Miller and Mrs. Greene were the only persons who 
knew any thing of his occupation. The many hours he spent in his 
mysterious pursuits, afibrded matter of great curiosity, and often of 
raillery, to the younger members of the family. Near the close of 
the winter, the machine was so nearly completed as to leave no 
doubt of his success. 

The individual who contributed most to incite him to persevere 
in the undertaking, was Mr. Miller, who was a native of Connecti- 
cut, and a graduate of Yale college. Like Mr. Whitney, soon 
after he had completed his education, he came to Georgia as a 
private teacher, in the family of Gen. Greene, and after the decease 



108 



AMERICAN MECHANICS. 



of the general, he became the husband of Mrs. Greene. He had 
qualified himself for the profession of law, and was a gentleman of 
cultivated mind and superior talents ; but he was of an ardent tern- 
perament, and therefore well fitted to enter with zeal into the views 
which the genius of his friend had laid open to him. He had also 
considerable funds at command, and proposed to Mr. Whitney to 
become the joint adventurer, and to be at the whole expense of ma- 
turing the invention* until it should be patented. If the machine 




11 1 

PLAN OF THE SAW AND BRUSH CYLINDERS. 



* Description of Whitney''s Cotton Gin. — The principal parts are two cylinders 
of diiFerent diameters, (see F H, section and plan, ) mounted in a strong wooden 
frame, A, which are turned by means either of a handle or a pulley and belt, act- 
ing upon the axis of a flywheel, attached to the end of the shaft, opposite to that 
seen in the section. Its endless band turns a large pulley on the end D of the saw 
cylinder F, and a smaller pulley on the end E of the brush cylinder H, (see plan,) so 
as to make the latter revolve with the greater rapidity. Upon the wooden cylin- 
der F, ten inches in diameter, are mounted, three quarters of an inch apart, iifty, 
sixty, or even eighty, circular saws, edged' as at I, (see section,) of one foot 
diameter, which fit very exactly into grooves cut one inch deep into the cylin- 
der. Each saw consists of two segments of a circle, and is preferably made 
of hammered (not rolled) sheet iron; the teeth must be kept very sharp. 
Opposite to the interstices of the saws are flat bars of iron, which form a 
parallel grid of such a curvature, that the shoulder of the slantmg saw tooth 
passes first, and then the point. By this means, when a tooth gets bent 
by the seeds, it resets itself by rubbing against the grid bars, instead of be- 
ing torn off, as would happen did the apex of the saw tooth enter first. Care 
must be taken that the saws revolve in the middle of their respective grid inter- 
vals, for if they rubbed against the bars they would tear the cotton filaments to 
pieces. The hollow cyhnder H, is mounted with the brushes c c c, the tips of 
whose bristles ought to touch the saw teeth, as at d, d, (see plan,) and thus 
sweep off the adhering cotton wool. The cylinder H revolves in an opposite 
direction to the cylinder F, as is indicated by the arrows in the section. 

The seed cotton, as picked from the pods, is thrown into the hoppej- L, (see 




COTTON GIN. 



ELI WHITNEY. HI 

should succeed in its intended operation, the parties agreed, under 
legal formalities, "that the profits and advantages arising there- 
from, as well as all privileges and emoluments to be derived from 
patenting, making, vending, and working the same, should be mu- 
tually and equally shared between them." This mstrument bears 
date May 27, 1793, and immediately afterwards they commenced 
business under the firm of Miller and Whitney. 

An invention so important to the agricultural interests (and, as 
it has proved, to every department of human industiy,) could not 
long remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through 
the state, and so great was the excitement on the subject, that mul- 
titudes of persons came from all quarters of the state to see the 
machine ; but it was not deemed safe to gratify their curiosity until 
the patent right should be secured. But so determined were some 
of the populace to possess this ti'easure, that neither law nor justice 
could restrain them ; they broke open the building by night, and 
carried ofi" the machine. In this way the public became possessed 
of the invention ; and before Mr. Whitney could complete his mo- 
del and secure liis patent, a number of machines were in successful 
operation, constructed with some slight deviation from the origmal, 
with the hope of evading the penalty for violating the patent right. 

As soon as the copartnership of Miller and Whitney was formed, 
Mr. Whitney repaired to Connecticut, where, as far as possible, he 
was to perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and manufacture and 
ship for Georgia, such a number of machmes as would supply the 
demand. 



section ;) the disc saws, I, in turning round, encounter the cotton filaments rest- 
ing against the gi-id, catch them with their sharp teeth, and drag them inwards 
and upwards, while the striped seeds, too large to pass between the bars, fall 
through the bottom N of the hopper, upon the inclined board M. The size of the 
aperture N, is regulated at pleasure by an adjusting screw to suit the size of the 
particular species of seeds. The saw teeth, iiUed with cotton wool, after return- 
ing through the grid, meet the brushes c c c of the cylinder H, and deliver it up 
to them ; the cotton is thereafter whisked dowm upon the sloping table O, and 
thence falls into the receptacle P. A cover Q (see section) encloses both the 
cylinders and the hopper ; this cover is turned up around the hinges as shown in 
the section, in order to introduce the charge of seed cotton into the machine, and 
is then let down before setting the wheels in gear with the driving power. The 
axis e e, ff, of the cylinders (see plan) should be well fitted into their plummer 
box bearings, so as to prevent any lateral swagging, which would greatly injure 
their operation. The raised position of the cover is obvious in the section, the 
liinge being placed at B. By means of the cotton gin, one man with the aid 
of a water wheel possessing a two horse power, can clean j^w thousand pounds of 
seed cotton in a day, eighty saws being mounted upon his machine. The clean- 
ed wool forms generally one fourth of the weight of the seed cotton, and some- 
times so much as twenty-seven per cent. The ginners are usually a distinct 
body from the planters, and they receive for their work one-eighth, or one-tenth of 
the nett weight of the cleaned cotton, under an obligation to supply all the seed 
required by the planter. 



112 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

Within three days after the conclusion of the copartnership, Mr. 
Whitney having set out for the north, Mr. Miller commenced his 
long correspondence relative to the cotton gin. The first letter 
announces that encroachments upon their rights had already com- 
menced. " It will be necessary," says Mr. Miller, " to have a consi- 
derable number of gins made, to be in readiness to send out as soon as 
the patent is obtained, in order to satisfy the absolute demands, and 
make people's heads easy on the subject ; for I am informed of two 
other claimants for the honor of the invention of cotton gins, in addi- 
tion to those we kneio before.'' 

At the close of this year (1793) Mr. Whitney was to return to 
Georgia with his cotton gins, where his partner had made arrange- 
ments for commencing business immediately after his arrival. The 
importunity of Mr. Miller's letters, written during the preceding 
period, urging him to come on, evinces how eager the Georgia 
planters were to enter the new field of enterprise which the genius 
of Whitney had laid open to them. Nor did they at first in general 
contemplate availing themselves of the invention unlawfully. But 
the minds of the more honorable class of planters were afterwards 
deluded by various artifices, set on foot by designing men, with the 
view of robbing Mr. Whitney of his just rights. 

One of the greatest difficulties experienced by men of enterprise, 
at this period, was the extreme scarcity of money, which embar- 
rassed them to such a degree as to render it almost impossible to 
construct machines fast enough. 

In April he returned to Georgia ; during his absence he was 
strongly importuned to return by his partner, on account of the 
infatuated eagerness of the Georgia planters to obtain the advan- 
tages of his machine. Large crops of cotton were planted, the 
profits of which were to depend, of course, entirely on the suc- 
cess and employment of the gin. 

The roller gin was at first the most formidable competitor with 
Whitney's machine. It extricated the seed by means of rollers, 
crushing them between revolving cylinders, instead of disengaging 
them by means of teeth. The fragments of seeds which remained 
in the cotton rendered its execution much inferior in this respect 
to Whitney's gin, and it was also much slower in its operation. 
Great efforts were made, however, to create an impression in 
favor of its superiority in other respects. 

But a still more formidable rival appeared early in the year 1795, 
under the name of the saw gin. It was Whitney's gin, except 
that the teeth were cut in circular rims of iron, instead of being 
made of wires, as was the case in the earlier forms of the patent 
gin. The idea of such teeth had early occurred to Mr. Whitney, 



ELI WHITNEY 113 

as he afterwards established by legal proof. But they would have 
been of no use except in connection with the other parts of his 
machine ; and, therefore, this was a palpable attempt to invade 
the patent right, and it y\^as pruacipally in reference to this that 
the lawsuits were afterwards held. 

In March, 1T95, in the midst of perplexities and discourage- 
ments, Mr. Whitney went to New York on business, where he 
was detained three weeks by fever. As soon as he was able, he 
went by packet to New Haven, where, on landing, he was in- 
formed, that on the preceding day, Ids shop, with all his macMncs 
and papers, had ieen consumed by fire ! Thus was he suddenly 
reduced to bankruptcy, being in debt four thousand dollars, with- 
out any means of payment. His mind, however, was not one to 
sink under such trials as even this ; he was, on the contrary, in- 
cited to more vigorous effort. Similar was the spirit manifested 
by Mr. Miller. The following extract of a letter of his to Mr. 
Whitney may be a useful lesson to young men who feel themselves 
overwhelmed with misfortunes : — 

" I think that we ought to meet such events with equanimity. 
We have been pursmng a valuable object by honorable means ; 
and I trust that all our measures have been such as reason and 
virtue must justify. It has pleased Providence to postpone the 
attamment of this object. In the midst of the reflections which 
your stoiy has suggested, and with feelings keenly awake to the 
heavy, the extensive injuiy we have sustained, I feel a secret joy 
and satisfaction, that you possess a mind in tliis respect similar to 
my own — that you are not disheartened — that you do not relin- 
quish the pursuit — and that you will persevere, and endeavor, at 
all events, to attain the main object. This is exactly consonant 
to my own determinations. I will devote all my time, all my 
thoughts, all my exertions, and all the money I can earn or bor- 
row, to encompass and complete the business we have undertaken ; 
and if fortune should, by any future disaster, deny us the boon we 
ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall never be said that we 
have lost an object which a little perseverance could have attained. 
I tliink, indeed, it will be veiy extraordinaiy, if two young men in 
the prime of hfe, with some share of ingenuity, with a little know- 
ledge of the world, a great deal of industiy, and a considerable 
command of property, should not be able to sustain such a stroke 
of inisfortune as this, heavy as it is." 

After this disaster the company began to feel much straitened 
for want of funds. Mr. Miller expresses a confidence that they 
should be able to raise money in some way or other, though he 
knows not how. He recommends to Mr. Whitney to proceed 



114 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

forthwith to erect a new shop, and to recommence his business, 
and requests him to tell the people of New Haven, who might be 
disposed to render them any service, that they required nothing 
but a little time to get their machinery in motion before they could 
make payment, and that the loan of money at twelve per cent, per 
annum would be as great a favor as they could ask. But, he 
adds, " in doing this, use great care to avoid giving an idea that 
we are in a desperate situation, to induce us to borrow money. 
To people who are deficient in understanding, this precaution will 
be extremely necessary : men of sense can easily distinguish be- 
tween the prospect of large gains, and the approaches to bank- 
ruptcy." " Such is the disposition of man," he observes on an- 
other occasion, " that while we keep afloat, there will not be want- 
ing those who will appear willing to assist us ; but let us once be 
given over, and they will immediately desert us." 

While misfortune was thus multiplying upon them, intelligence 
was received from England that the manufacturers had con- 
demned the cotton cleaned by their machines, on the ground 
that the staple was greatly injured. This news threatened the 
death-blow to their hopes. At this time (1796) they had thirty 
gins at eight different places in Georgia, some carried by horses 
and oxen, and some by water. Some of these were even then 
standing still. The company had $10,000 dollars in real estate, 
suited only to the purposes of ginning cotton. The following ex- 
tract of a letter, written by Mr. Whitney at this period, will serve 
to show the state of his mind and affairs at this period : — 

" The extreme embarrassments," says he, " which have been, for 
a long time accumulating upon me, are now become so great, that 
it will be impossible for me to struggle against them many days 
longer. It has required my utmost exertions to exist, without 
making the least progress in our business. I have labored hard 
against the strong current of disappointment, which has been 
threatening to carry us down the cataract, but I have labored 
with a shattered oar, and struggled in vain, unless some speedy 

relief is obtained Life is but short at best, and six or seven 

years out of the midst of it is, to him who makes it, an immense 
sacrifice. My most unremitted attention has been devoted to our 
business ; I have sacrificed to it other objects from which, before 
this time, I might certainly have gained twenty or thirty thousand 
dollars. My whole prospects have been embarked in it, with the 
expectation that I should, before this time, have realized something 
from it." 

The cotton from Whitney's gins was, however, sought by mer- 
chants in preference to other kinds, and respectable manufacturers 



ELI WHITNEY. 115 

testified in its favor ; and had it not been for the extensive and 
shameful violations of their patent right, they might yet have suc- 
ceeded, but these encroachments had become so extensive as al- 
most to annihilate its value. The issue of the first trial they were 
able to obtain, is announced in the following letter from Mr. Miller, 
dated May 11, 1797 :— 

" The event of the first patent suit, after all our exertions made 
in such a variety of ways, has gone against us. The preposterous 
custom of trying civil causes of this intricacy and magnitude by a 
common jury, together with the imperfection of the patent law, 
frustrated all our views, and disappointed expectations which had 
become very sanguine. The tide of popular opinion was running 
in our favor, the judge was well disposed towards us, and many 
decided friends were with us, who adhered firmly to our cause and 
interests. The judge gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our 
favor ; after which the defendant himself told an acquaintance of 
his, that he would give two thousand dollars to be free from the 
verdict ; and yet the jury gave it against us, after a consultation 
of about an hour. And having made the verdict general, no ap- 
peal would lie. 

" On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we ap- 
plied for a new trial ; but the judge refused it to us, on the ground 
that the jury might have made up their opinion on the defect of 
the law, which makes an aggression consist of making, devising, 
and using, or selling ; whereas we could only charge the defendant 
with using. 

" Thus, after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue, and diffi. 
culty, are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected ob- 
stacle. Our hopes of success are now removed to a period still 
more distant than before, while our expenses are realized beyond 
all controversy." 

Great efforts were made to obtain trial in a second suit, at the 
session of the court in Savannah, in May, 1798. A great number 
of witnesses were collected from various parts of the country, to 
the distance of a hundred miles from Savannah, when, behold, no 
judge appeai'ed, and, of course, no court was held. In conse- 
quence of the failure of the first suit, and so great a procrastina- 
tion of the second, the encroachments on the patent right had been 
prodigiously multiplied, so as almost entirely to destroy the busi- 
ness of the patentees. 

In April, 1799, Mr. Miller writes as follows : — " The prospect 
of making any thing by ginning in this state is at an end. Sur- 
reptitious gins are erected in every part of the country ; and the 
jurymen at Augusta have come to an understanding among them- 



116 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

selves, that they will never give a cause in our favor, let the merits 
of the case be as they may." 

The company would now have gladly relinquished the plan of 
working their own machines, and confined their operations to the 
sale of patent rights ; but few would buy a patent right which they 
could use with impunity without purchasing, and those few, hardly 
in a single instance, paid cash, but gave their notes, which they 
afterwards to a great extent avoided paying, either by obtaining a 
verdict from the juries declaring them void, or by contriving to 
postpone the collection until they were barred by the statute of 
limitations, a period of only four years. When thus barred, the 
agent of Miller and Whitney, who was despatched on a collecting 
tour through the state of Georgia, informed them, that such ob- 
stacles were thrown in his way from one or the other of the fore- 
going causes, he was unable to collect money enough from all 
these claims to bear his expenses, but was compelled to draw for 
nearly the whole amount of these upon his employers. 

It was suggested that an application to the legislature of South 
Carolina to purchase the patent right for that state would be suc- 
cessful. Mr. Whitney accordingly repaired to Columbia, and the 
business was brought before the legislature soon after the opening 
of the session in December, 1801. An extract from a letter of 
Mr. Whitney to his friend Stebbins, at this time, will show the 
nature of the contract thus made : — 

" I have been at this place a little more than two weeks, attend- 
ing the legislature. They closed their session at ten o'clock last 
evening. A few hours previous to their adjournment, they voted 
to purchase, for the state of South Carolina, my patent right to the 
machine for cleaning cotton, at fifty thousand dollars, of which 
sum twenty thousand is to be paid in hand, and the remainder in 
three annual payments of ten thousand dollars each." He adds, 
" We get but a song for it in comparison with the worth of the 
thing ; but it is securing something. It will enable Miller and 
Whitney to pay all their debts, and divide something between them." 

In December, 1802, Mr. Whitney negotiated a sale of his patent 
right with the state of North Carolina. The legislature laid a tax 
of two shillings and sixpence upon every saw* employed in ginning 
cotton, to be continued for five years ; and after deducting the ex- 
penses of collection, the avails were faithfully passed over to the 
patentee. This compensation was regarded by Mr. Whitney as 
moie liberal than that received from any other source. About 
the same time, Mr. Goodrich, an agent of the company, entered 

* Some of the gins had forty saws. 



ELI WHITNEY. 117 

into a similar negotiation with the state of Tennessee. This state 
had by this time begun to reahze the importance and usefulness 
of tlie invention. The citizens testified strongly their desire of 
coming into possession of its benefits. The legislature, therefore, 
passed a law, laying a tax of thirty-seven and a half cents per 
annum on every saw, for the space of four years. 

Thus far prospects were growing favorable to the patentees, 
when the legislature of South Carolina unexpectedly annulled the 
contract she had made, suspended further payment of the balance 
then due, and sued for the refunding of what had already been paid. 

When ]Mr. Whitney first heard of the transactions of the South 
CaroHna legislature annulHng their contract, he was at Raleigh, 
where he had just concluded his negotiation with the legislature 
of North Carolina. In a letter written to Mr. Miller at this time 
he remarks : " I am, for my own part, moi-e vexed than alarmed 
by their extraordinary proceedings. I think it behooves us to be 
veiy cautious and circumspect in our measui'es, and even in our 
remarks with regard to it. Be cautious what you say or publish 
till we meet our enemies in a court of justice, when, if they have 
any sensibility left, we will make them veiy much ashamed of 
their childish conduct." 

But that Mr. Whitney felt veiy keenly in regard to the severities 
afterwards practised towards him, is evident from the tenor of the 
remonstrance which he presented to the legislature. " The sub- 
scriber (says he) respectfully soHcits permission to represent to 
the legislature of South Carolina, that he conceives himself to have 
been treated with unreasonable severity in the measures recently 
taken against him b)^ and under their immediate direction. He 
holds that, to be seized and dragged to prison without being al- 
lowed to be heard in answer to the charge alleged against him, 
and indeed without the exhibition of any specific charge, is a direct 
violation of the common right of every citizen of a free govern- 
ment ; that the power, in this case, is all on one side ; that what- 
ever may be the issue of the process now instituted against liim, 
he must, in any case, be subjected to great expense and extreme 
hardships ; and that he considers the tribunal before which he is 
holden to appear, to be wholly incompetent to decide, definitively, 
existing disputes between the state and Miller and Whitney. 

" The subscriber avers that he has manifested no other than a 
disposition to fulfil all the stipulations, entered into with the state 
of South Carolina, with punctuality and good faith ; and he begs 
leave to observe farther, that to have industriously, laboriously, 
and exclusively, devoted many years of the prime of his hfe to 
the invention and the improvement of a machine, from which the 



118 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

citizens of South Carolina have ah-eady realized immense profits, 
— which is worth to them millions, and from which their posterity, 
to the latest generations, must continue to derive the most im- 
portant benefits, and in return to be treated as a felon, a swindler, 
and a villain, has stung him to the very soul. And when he con- 
siders that this cruel persecution is inflicted by the very persons 
who are enjoying these great benefits, and expressly for the pur- 
pose of preventing his ever deriving the least advantage from his 
own labors, the acuteness of his feelings is altogether inexpressible." 

Doubts, it seems, had arisen in the public mind as to the validity 
of the patent, and the patentees were supposed to have failed in the 
fulfilment of a part of the contract. Great exertions had been 
made in Georgia, where, it will be remembered, hostilities were 
first declared against him, to show that his title to the invention 
was unsound, and that somelody in Switzerland had conceived of 
it before him, and that the improved form of the machine, with 
saws instead of wire teeth, did not come within the patent, having 
been introduced by one Hodgin Holmes. 

The popular voice, stimulated by the most sordid motives, was 
now raised against him throughout all the cotton growing states. 
The state of Tennessee followed the example of South Carolina, 
in annulling the contract made with him ; and the attempt was 
made in North Carolina, but a committee of the legislature, to 
whom it was referred, reported in his favor, declaring " that the 
contract ought to be fulfilled with punctuality and good faith," 
which resolution was adopted by both houses. There were also 
high-minded men in South Carolina who were indignant at the 
dishonorable measures adopted by their legislature of 1803 ; and 
their sentiments had impressed the community so favorably with 
regard to Mr. Whitney, that at the session of 1804, the legislature 
not only rescinded what the previous one had done, but signified 
their respect for Mr. Whitney by marked commendations. Nor 
ought it to be forgotten that there were in Georgia, too, those who 
viewed with scorn and indignation the base attempts of dema- 
gogues to defraud him. The proceedings against Mr. Whitney 
were predicated upon impositions practised upon the public. 

At this time, a new and unexpected responsibility devolved on 
Mr. Whitney, in consequence of the death of his partner, Mr. 
Miller, who died on the 7th of December, 1803. Mr. Miller had, 
in the early stages of the enterprise, indulged very high hopes of 
a sudden fortune ; but perpetual disappointments appear to have 
attended him throughout the remainder of his life. The history 
of them, as detailed in his voluminous correspondence, afibrds an 
instructive exemplification of the anxiety, toil, and uncertainty 



ELI WHITNEY. II9 

that frequently accompany too eager a pursuit of wealth, and the 
pain and disappointments that follow in the train of expectations 
too highly elated. If Mr. Miller anticipated a great bargain from 
an approaching auction of cotton, some sly adventurer was sure 
to step in before him, and bid it out of his hands. If he looked 
to his extensive rice crops, cultivated on the estate of General 
Greene, as the means of raising money to extricate himself from 
the numerous embarrassments into which he had fallen, a severe 
drought came on and shrivelled the crop, or floods of rain sud. 
denly destroyed it. The markets unexpectedly changed at the 
very moment of selling, and always to his disadvantage. Heavy 
rains hkewise destroyed the cotton crops on which he had counted 
for thousands ; and more than all, wicked and dishonest men con- 
trived to cheat him of his just rights, and thus his airy hopes were 
often frustrated, until at length he was beguiled into inextricable 
difficulties ; and in the midst of all, and on the dawn of a brighter 
day, death stepped in and dissolved the pageant that had so long 
been dancing before his eyes. 

Mr. Whitney was now left alone, to contend singly against those 
difficulties which had for a series of years almost broken down the 
spirits of both the partners. The light, moreover, which seemed 
to be rising upon them from the favorable occurrences of the pre- 
ceding year, proved but the twilight of prosperity, and a darker 
night seemed about to supervene. 

But the favorable issue of the affairs of Mr. Whitney, in South 
CaroUna, during the subsequent year, and the generous receipts 
that he obtained from the avails of his contracts with North Caro- 
lina, relieved him from the embarrassments under which he had 
so long groaned, and made him in some degree independent. 
Still, no small portion of the funds thus collected in North and 
South Carolina was expended in carrying on the fruitless, endless 
lawsuits in Georgia. 

In the United States court, held in Georgia in December, 1807 
Mr. Whitney obtained a most important decision, in a suit brought 
against a trespasser of the name of Fort. It was on this trial that 
Judge Johnson gave his celebrated decision. It was in the follow^ 
ing words : — 

" Whitney, survivor of ^ 
Miller &• Whitney, It 

vs. f ^"^ ^^"^"-^y- 

Arthur Fort. J 
" The complainants, in this case, are proprietors of the machine 
called the saw gin : the use of which is to detach the short staple 
cotton from its seed. 



120 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

" The defendant, in violation of their patent right, has con. 
structed, and continues to use this machine ; and the object of 
this suit is to obtain a perpetual injunction to prevent a continuance 
of this infraction of complainant's right. 

" Defendant admits most of the facts in the bill set forth, but 
contends that the complainants are not entitled to the benefits of 
the act of congress on this subject, because — 

1st. The invention is not original. 

2d. Is not useful. 

3d. That the machine which he uses is materially different from 
their invention, in the application of an improvement, the invention 
of another person. 

" The court vi^ill proceed to make a few remarks upon the 
several points as they have been presented to their view : whether 
the defendant was now at liberty to set up this defence whilst the 
patent right of complainants remains unrepealed, has not been 
made a question, and they will therefore not consider it. 

" To support the originality of the invention, the complainants 
have produced a variety of depositions of witnesses, examined un- 
der commission, whose examination expressly proves the origin, 
progress, and completion of the machine by Whitney, one of the 
copartners. Persons who were made privy to his first discovery, 
testify to the several experiments which he made in their presence 
before he ventured to expose his invention to the scrutiny of the 
public eye. But it is not necessary to resort to such testimony 
to maintain this point. The jealousy of the artist to maintain that 
reputation which his ingenuity has justly acquired, has urged him 
to unnecessary pains on this subject. There are circumstances 
in the knowledge of all znankind which prove the originality of 
this invention more satisfactorily to the mind than the direct testi- 
mony of a host of witnesses. The cotton plant furnished clothing 
to mankind before the age of Herodotus. The green seed is a 
species much more productive than the Hack, and by nature 
adapted to a much greater variety of climate ; but by reason of 
the strong adherence of the fibre to the seed, without the aid of 
some more powerful machine for separating it than any formerly 
known among us, the cultivation of it would never have leen made 
an object. The machine of which Mr. Whitney claims the inven- 
tion so facilitates the preparation of this species for use, that the 
cultivation of it has suddenly become an object of infinitely greater 
national importance than that of the other species ever can be. Is 
it, then, to be imagined, that if this machine had been before dis- 
covered, the use of it would ever have been lost, or could have 
been confined to any tract or country left unexplored by commep- 



ELI WHITNEY. 121 

cial enterprise ? But it is unnecessaiy to remark further upon this 
subject. A number of years have elapsed since Mr. Whitney took 
out his patent, and no one has produced or pretended to prove the 
existence of a machine of similar construction or use. 

" 2d. With regard to the utiUty of this discovery, the court 
would deem it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic. Is 
there a man who hears us who has not experienced its utility ? 
the whole interior of the southern states was languishing, and its 
inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to engage their 
attention and employ their industry, when the invention of this 
machine at once opened views to them which set the whole coun- 
try in active motion. From childhood to age it has presented to 
us a lucrative employment. Individuals who were depressed with 
poverty and sunk in idleness, have suddenly risen to wealth and 
respectability. Our debts have ieen paid off; our capitals have 
increased, and our lands trehled themselves in value. We cannot 
express the weight of the obligation which the country owes to this 
invention. The extent of it cannot now be seen. Some faint pi-e- 
sentiment may be formed from the reflection that cotton is rapidly 
supplanting wool, flax, silk, and even furs in manufactures, and 
may one day profitably supply the use of specie in our East India 
trade. Our sister states, also, participate in the benefits of this 
invention ; for, besides afibrding the raw material for their manu- 
facturers, the bulkiness and quantity of the article afford a valuable 
employment for their shipping. 

" 3d. The third and last ground taken by defendant appears to 
be that on which he mostly relies. In the specification, the teeth 
made use of are of strong wire inserted into the cylinder. A Mr. 
Holmes has cut teeth in plates of iron, and passed them over the 
cylinder. This is certainly a meritorious improvement in the 
mechanical process of constructing this machine. But at last 
what does it amount to, except a more convenient mode of making 
the same thing ; every characteristic of Mr. Whitney's machine 
(s preserved. The cylinder, the iron tooth, the rotary motion of 
the tooth, the breast work and brush, and all the merit that this 
discovery can assume, is that of a more expeditious mode of at- 
taching the tooth to the cylinder. After being attached, in opera- 
tion and effect they are entirely the same. Mr. Whitney may not 
be at liberty to use Mr. Holmes's iron plate ; but certainly Mr. 
Holmes's improvement does not destroy Mr. Whitney's patent 
right. Let the decree for a perpetual injunction be entered." 

This favorable decision, however, did not put a final stop to 
aggression. At the next session of the United States court, two 
other actions were brought, and verdicts for damages gained of 



122 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

two thousand dollars in one case, and one thousand and five hun 
dred dollars in the other. 

The influence of these decisions, however, availed Mr. Whitney 
very little, for now the term of his patent right was Hearly expired. 
More than sixty suits had been instituted in Georgia before a single 
decision on the merits of his claim was obtained, and at the period 
of this decision thirty years of his patent had expired. In prose- 
cution of this troublesome business, Mr. Whitney had made six 
different journeys to Georgia, several of which were accomplished 
by land at a time when, compared with the present, the difficulties 
of such journeys were exceedingly great, and exposed him to ex- 
cessive fatigues and privations, which at times seriously affected 
his health, and even jeopardized his life. A gentleman of much 
experience, who was well acquainted with Mr. Whitney's affairs in 
the south, and sometimes acted as his legal adviser, observes, that 
" in all his experience in the thorny profession of the law, he has 
never seen a case of such perseverance, under such persecution ; 
nor," he adds, " do I believe that I ever knew any other man who 
would have met them with equal coohiess and firmness, or who 
would finally have obtained even the partial success which he had. 
He always called on me in New York, on his way south, when 
going to attend his endless trials, and to meet the mischievous 
contrivances of men who seemed inexhaustible in their resources 
of evil. Even now, after thirty years, my head aches to recollect 
his narratives of new trials, fresh disappointments, and accumu- 
lated wrongs." 

In 1798, Mr. Whitney became deeply impressed with the uncer- 
tainty of all his hopes founded upon the cotton gin, notwithstanding 
their high promise, and he began to think seriously of devoting 
himself to some business in which superior ingenuity, seconded by 
uncommon industry, qualifications which he must have been con- 
scious of possessing in no ordinary degree, would conduct him by 
a slow but sure route to a competent fortune ; and we have always 
considered it indicative of a solid judgment, and a well-balanced 
mind, that he did not, as is frequently the case with men of in- 
ventive genius, become so poisoned with the hopes of vast and 
sudden wealth, as to be disqualified for making a reasonable pro- 
vision for life by the sober earnings of frugal industry. 

The enterprise which he selected in accordance with these views 
was the manufacture of arms for the United States. He addressed 
a letter to the Hon. Oliver Wolcott, secretary of the treasury, by 
whose influence he obtained a contract for the manufacture of ten 
thousand stand of arms, four thousand of which were to be deliv- 
ered on or before the last of September of the ensuing year, (the 



ELI WHITNEY. 125 

contract being concluded on the 14th of January, 1798,) and the 
remaining six thousand within one year from that time. 

The site which Mr. Whitney had pui-chased for his works was 
at the foot of the celebrated precipice called East Rock, near 
the city of New Haven. This spot (which is now called Whit, 
neyville) is justly admired for the romantic beauty of its scenery. 
A waterfall of moderate extent afforded here the necessary power 
for propelling the machinery. In this pleasant retreat Mr. Whit- 
ney commenced his operations with the greatest zeal ; and his 
great mind, and daring, persevering spirit, were abundantly mani- 
fested in this undertaking. His machinery was yet to be built, his 
materials to be collected, and even his workmen to be taught, and 
that in a business with which he was imperfectly acquainted. A 
severe winter retarded his operations, and the multiphed difficul- 
ties of his undertaking rendered him wholly incompetent to the 
fulfilment of the c(^tract, and delivering the arms within the limited 
time. Only five hundred, instead of four thousand, were dehvered 
the first year, and eight, instead of two years, were found neces- 
sary for completing the whole. Notwithstanding this, the govern- 
ment seems to have been altogether liberal in its dealings with him. 

During the eight years Mr. Whitney was occupied in performing 
this engagement, he applied himself to business with the most 
exemplary diligence, rising every morning as soon as it was day, 
and at night setting every thing in order appertaining to all parts 
of the establishment before he retired to rest. In a letter ad- 
dressed to the secretary of the treasury at this period, he says — 
" I find that my personal attention and oversiglat are more con- 
stantly and essentially necessary to every branch of the work than 
I apprehended. Mankind, generally, are not to be depended on, 
and the best workmen I can find ai-e incapable of directing. 
Indeed there is no branch of the work that can proceed well, 
scarcely for a single hour, unless I am present." His genius, in- 
deed, impressed itself on every part of the manufactory, extending 
even to the most common tools, all of which received some pecu- 
liar modification which improved them in accuracy, or efficacy, or 
beauty. His machinery for making the several parts of a musket 
was made to operate with the greatest possible degree of uniform- 
ity and precision. The object at which he aimed, and which he 
fully accomplished, was to make the same parts of different guns, 
as the locks, for example, as much like each other as the succes- 
sive impressions of a copper-plate engraving. It has generally 
been conceded that Mr. Whitney greatly improved the art of 
manufacturing arms, and laid his country under permanent obliga- 
tions, by augmenting her facilities for national defence. So rapid 



126 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

has been the improvement in the arts and manufactures in this 
country, that it is difficult to conceive of the low state in which 
they were thirty years ago. To this advancement the genius and 
industry of Mr. Whitney most essentially contributed ; for while 
he was clearing off the numerous impediments which were thrown 
in his way, he was at the same time performing the office of a 
pioneer to the succeeding generation. 

In 1812 he entered into a contract to manufacture for the United 
States fifteen thousand stand of arms, and in the mean time he made 
a similar contract with the State of New York. 

Several other persons made contracts with the government at 
about the same time, and attempted the manufacture of muskets, 
following, substantially, so far as they understood it, the method 
pursued in England. — The result of their efforts was a complete 
failure to manufacture muskets of the quality required, at the price 
agreed to be paid by the government : and in some instances they 
expended in the execution of their contracts, a considerable for- 
tune in addition to the whole amount received for their work. 

The low state to which the arts had been depressed in this coun. 
try by the policy of England, under the colonial system, and from 
which they had then scarcely begun to recover, together with the 
high price of labor, and other causes, conspired to render it im- 
practicable at that time even for those most competent to the un- 
dertaking, to manufacture muskets here in the Enghsh method. 
And doubtless Mr. Whitney would have shared the fate of his 
enterprising but unsuccessful competitors, had he adopted the 
course which they pursued ; but his genius struck out for him a 
course entirely new. 

In maturing his system he had many obstacles to combat, and 
a much longer time was occupied, than he had anticipated; but 
with his characteristic firmness he pursued his object, in the face 
of the obloquy and ridicule of his competitors, the evil predictions 
of his enemies, and the still more discouraging and disheartening 
misgivings, doubts, and apprehensions of his friends. His efforts 
were at length crowned with success, and he had the satisfaction 
to find, that the business which had proved so ruinous to others, 
was likely to prove not altogether unprofitable to himself. 

Our limits do not permit us to give a minute and detailed ac- 
count of this system ; and we shall only glance at two or three of 
its more prominent features, for the purpose of illustrating its gen- 
eral character. 

The several parts of the musket were, under this system, carried 
along through the various processes of manufacture, in lots of some 
hundreds or thousands of each. In their various stages of pro- 



ELI WHITNEY. 127 

gress, they were made to undergo successive operations by ma- 
chinery, which not only vastly abridged the labor, but at the same 
time so fixed and determined their form and dimensions, as to 
make comparatively httle skill necessary in the manual operations. 
Such was the construction and arrangement of this machinery, 
that it could be worked by persons of little or no experience ; and 
yet it performed the work with so much precision, that when, in 
the later stages of the process, the several parts of the musket 
came to be put together, they were as readily adapted to each 
other, as if each had been made for its respective fellow. A lot 
of these parts passed through the hands of several different work- 
men successively, (and in some cases several times returned, at 
intervals more or less remote, to the hands of the same workman,) 
each performing upon them every time some single and simple 
operation, by machinery or by hand, until they were completed. 
Thus Mr. Whitney reduced a complex business, embracing many 
ramifications, almost to a mere succession of simple processes, and 
was thereby enabled to make a division of the labor among his 
workmen, on a principle which was not only more extensive, but 
also altogether more philosophical, than that pursued in the English 
method. In England, the labor of making a musket was divided 
by making the different workmen the manufacturers of different 
hmbs, while in Mr. Whitney's system the work was divided with 
reference to its nature, and several workmen performed different 
operations on the same hmb. 

It will be readily seen that under such an arrangement any per- 
son of ordinary capacity would soon acquire sufficient dexterity to 
perform a branch of the work. Indeed, so easy did Mr. Whitney 
find it to instruct new and inexperienced workmen, that he uni- 
formly preferred to do so, ' rather than to attempt to combat the 
prejudices of those, who had learned the business under a different 
system. 

When Mr. Whitney's mode of conducting the business was 
brought into successful operation, and the utility of his machinery 
was fuUy demonstrated, the clouds of prejudice which lowered over 
his first efforts, were soon dissipated, and he had the satisfaction 
of seeing not only his system, but most of his machinery, intro- 
duced into every other considerable estabhshment for the manu- 
facture of arms, both public and private, in the United States. 

The labors of Mr. Whitney in the manufacture of arms, have 
been often and fully admitted by the officers of the government, to 
have been of the greatest value to the public interest. In the year 
1822, Mr. Calhoun, then secretaiy of war, admitted, in a conver- 
sation with Mr. Whitney, that the govennnent were saving twenty- 

6* 



128 AMERICAN MECHANICS 

five thousand dollars per annum at the two public armories alone, 
by his improvements. This admission, though it is beheved to be 
far below the truth, is sufficient to show, that the subject of this 
memoir deserved well of his country in this department of her 
service. 

It should be remarked, that the utility of Mr. Whitney's labors 
during the period of his life which we have now been contemplat- 
ing, was not limited to the particular business in which he was 
engaged. Many of the inventions which he made to facilitate the 
manufacture of muskets, were applicable to most other manufac- 
tures of iron and steel. To many of these they were soon extend- 
ed, and became the nucleus around which other inventions clus- 
tered ; and at the present time some of them may be recognised in 
almost every considerable workshop of that description in the 
United States. 

In the year 1812, Mr. W. made application to congress for the 
renewal of his patent for the cotton gin. In his memorial, he pre- 
sented a history of the struggles he had been forced to encounter 
in defence of his right, observing that he had been unable to obtain 
any decision on the merits of his claim until he had been eleven 
years in the law, and thirteen years of his patent term had expired. 
He sets forth, that his invention had been a source of opulence to 
thousands of the citizens of the United States ; that, as a labor- 
saving machine, it would enable one man to perform the work of a 
thousand men ; and that it furnishes to the whole family of man- 
kind, at a very cheap rate, the most essential article of their cloth- 
ing. Hence, he humbly conceived himself entitled to a further 
remuneration from his country, and thought he ought to be admit- 
ted to a more liberal participation with his fellow citizens in the 
benefits of his invention. Although so great advantages had bee-n 
already experienced, and the prospect of future benefits was so 
promising, still, many of those whose interest had been most pro. 
moted, and the value of whose property had been most enhanced 
by this invention, had obstinately persisted in refusing to make any 
compensation to the inventor. The very men whose wealth had 
been acquired by the use of this machine, and who had grown rich 
beyond all former example, had combined their exertions to pre- 
vent the patentee from deriving any emolument from his invention. 
From that state in which he had first made, and where he had first 
introduced his machine, and which had derived the most signal 
benefits from it, he had received nothing ; and from no state had 
he received the amount of half a cent per pound on the cotton 
cleaned with his machines in one year. Estimating the value of 
the labor of one man at twenty cents per day, the whole amount 



ELI WHITNEY. 129 

which had been received by him for his invention, was not equal 
to the value of the "labor saved in one hour, by his machines then 
in use in the United States. " This invention (he proceeds) now 
gives to the southern section of the Union, over and above the 
profits which would be derived from the cultivation of any other 
crop, an annual emolument of at least three millions of dollars."* 
The foregoing statement does not rest on conjecture, — it is no vis- 
ionary speculation, — all these advantages have been realized ; the 
j}]rinters of the southern states have counted the cash, felt the weight 
of it in their pockets, and heard the exliilarating sound of its collis- 
ion. Nor do the advantages stop here : this immense source of 
wealth is but just beginning to be opened. Cotton is a more 
cleanly and healthful article of cultivation than tobacco and indigo, 
which it has superseded, and does not so much impoverish the soil. 
This invention has already trebled the value of the land through a 
great extent of territory ; and the degree to which the cultivation 
of cotton may be still augmented, is altogether incalculable. This 
species of cotton has been known in all countries where cotton has 
been raised, from time immemorial, but was never known as an 
article of commerce, until since this method of cleaning it was dis- 
covered. In short, (to quote the language of Judge Johnson,) if we 
should assert that the benefits of this invention exceed one hundred 
millions of dollars, we can prove the assertion by correct calcula- 
tion. " It is objected that if the patentee succeeds in procuring 
the renewal of his patent, he will be too rich. There is no proba- 
bihty that the patentee, if the term of his patent were extended for 
twenty years, would ever obtain for his invention one half as much 
as many an individual will gain by the use of it. Up to the present 
time, the whole amount of what he has acquired from this source, 
(after deducting his expenses,) does not exceed one half the sum 
which a single individual has gained by the use of the machine in 
one year. It is true that considerable sums have been obtained 
from some of the states where the machine is used ; but no small 
portion of these sums has been expended in prosecuting his claim 
in a state where nothing has been obtained, and where his machine 
has been used to the greatest advantage. 

"Your memorialist has not been able to discover any reason 
why he, as well as others, is not entitled to share the benefits of 
his own labors. He who speculates upon the markets, and takes 
advantage of the necessities of others, and by these means accumu- 
lates property, is called < a man of enterprise' — ' a man of busi- 
ness' — he is complimented for his talents, and is protected by the 

♦ This was in 1812 : the amount of profit is at this time incomparably greater 



130 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

laws. He however only gets into his possession, that which wa3 
before in the possession of another ; he adds nothing to the pubUc 
stock ; and can he who has given thousands to others, be thought 
unreasonable, if he asks one in return 1 

" It is to be remembered, that the pursuit of wealth by means of 
new inventions, is a very precarious and uncertain one ; — a lottery 
where there are many thousand blanks to one prize. Of aU the 
various attempts at improvements, there are probably not more 
than one in five hundred for which a patent is taken out; and of 
all the patents taken out, not one in twenty has yielded a nett profit 
to the patentee equal to the amount of the patent fees. In cases 
where a useful and valuable invention is brought into operation, the 
reward ought to be in proportion to the hazard of the pursuit. The 
patent law has now been in operation more than fourteen years. 
Many suits for damages have been instituted against those who 
have infringed the right of patentees ; and it is a fact, that very 
rarely has the patentee ever recovered. If you would hold out in- 
ducements for men of real talents to engage in these pursuits, your 
rewards must be sure and substantial. Men of this description 
can calculate, and will know how to appreciate, the recompense 
which they are to receive for their labors. If the encouragement 
held out be specious and delusive, the discerning will discover the 
fallacy, and will despise it : the weak and visionary only will be 
decoyed by it, and your patent office will be filled with rubbish. 
The number of those who succeed in bringing into operation really 
useful and important improvements, always has been, and always 
must be, very small. It is not probable that this number can ever 
be as great as one in a hundred thousand. It is therefore impossi- 
ble that they can ever exert upon the community an undue influ- 
ence. There is, on the contrary, much probability and danger that 
their rights will be trampled on by the many." 

Notwithstanding these cogent arguments, the application was 
rejected by Congress. Some liberal minded and enlightened men 
from the cotton districts, favored the petition : but a majority of 
the members from that section of the Union, were warmly opposed 
to granting it. 

In a correspondence with the late Mr, Robert Fulton, on the 
same subject, Mr. Whitney observes as follows : — " The difficulties 
with which I have had to contend have originated, principally, in 
the want of a disposition in mankind to do justice. My invention 
was new and distinct from every other : it stood alone. It was 
not interwoven with any thing before known ; and it can seldom 
happen that an invention or improvement is so strongly marked, 
and can be so clearly and specifically identified ; and I have 



ELI WHITNEY. 131 

always believed, that I should have had no difficulty in causing my 
rights to be respected, if it had been less valuable, and been used 
only by a small portion of the community. But the use of this 
machine being immensely profitable to almost every planter in the 
cotton districts, all were interested in trespassing upon the patent 
right, and each kept the other in countenance. Demagogues made 
themselves popular my misrepresentation, and unfounded clamors, 
both against the right, and against the law made for its protection. 
Hence there arose associations and combinations to oppose both. 
At one time, but few men in Georgia dared to come into court, 
and testify to the most simple facts within their knowledge, relative 
to the use of the machine. In one instance, I had great difficulty 
in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia, although, at 
the same moment, there were three separate setts of this machinery 
in motion, within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, 
and all so near that the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard 
on the steps of the court house."* 

While, however, unsuccessfully endeavoring to secure to himself 
some of the avails of the immense benefits he had thus bestowed 
on his fellow citizens, his manufactory was gradually leading him 
to more affluent and libera] circumstances. In January, 1817, he 
married Miss Henrietta F. Edwards, the youngest daughter of the 
Hon. Pierpont Edwards, of the District Court for the State of Con- 
necticut. Fortune seemed now to smile upon him, as he saw his 
domestic circle increase by the addition of a son and three daugh- 
ters, and a prosperous and sunny close appeared to be about to 
terminate his stormy and vexatious day of life. 

But death who comes to all, prostrated him upon a bed of pain , 
and after a protracted period of suffering, he breathed his last, on 
the 8th of January, 1825, after having labored for a long while 
under a formidable and tedious disease. 

The strongest demonstrations of respect and regard, were mani- 
fested by the citizens of New Haven, in committing his remains to 

* In one of his trials, Mr. Whitney adopted the following plan, in order to show 
how nugatory were the methods of evasion practised by his adversaries. They 
were endeavoring to have liis claim to the invention set aside, on the ground, 
that the teeth in his machine were made of wire, inserted into the cylinder of 
wood, while in the machine of Holmes, the teeth were cut in plates, or iron sur- 
rounding the cylinder, forming a circular saw. Mr. Whitney, by an ingenious 
device, (consisting chiefly of sinking the plate below the surface of the cylinder, 
and suflfering the teeth to project,) contrived to give to the saw teeth the appear- 
ance of wires, while he prepared another cylinder in which the wire teeth were 
made to look like saw teeth. The two cylinders were produced in court, and the 
witnesses were called on to testify which was the invention of Whitney, and 
which that of Holmes. They accordingly swore the saw teeth upon Whitney, 
and the wire teeth upon Holmes ; upon which the judge declared that it was un- 
necessary to proceed any farther, the principle of both being manifestly the same. 



132 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

the earth, and the Rev. President Day pronounced over his grave 
the following eulogy. 

" How frequent and how striking are the monitions to us, that 
this world is not the place of our rest ! 

" It is not often the case, that a man has laid his plans for the 
business and the enjoyment of life, with a deeper sagacity, than the 
friend whose remains we have now committed to the dust. He 
had received, as the gift of heaven, a mind of a superior order. 
Early habits of thinldng gave to it a character of independence 
and originalit}^ He was accustomed to form his decisions, not 
after the model of common opinion, but by his own nicely balanced 
judgment. His mind was enriched with the treasures which are 
furnished by a liberal education. He had a rare fertility of inven- 
tion in the arts ; an exactness of execution almost unequalled. By 
a single exercise of his powers, he changed the state of cultivation, 
and multiplied the wealth, of a large portion of our countiy. He 
set an example of system and precision in mechanical operations, 
which others had not even thought of attempting. 

" The higher qualities of his mind, instead of unfitting him for 
ordinary duties, were finely tempered with taste and judgment in the 
business of life. His manners were formed by an extensive inter- 
course with the best society. He had an energy of character which 
carried him through difficulties too formidable for ordinary minds. 

" With these advantages, he entered on the career of life. His 
efforts were crowned with success. An ample competency was 
the reward of his industry and skill. He had gained the respect 
of all classes of the community. His opinions were regarded with 
peculiar deference, by the man of science, as well as the practical 
artist. His large and liberal views, his knowledge of the world, 
the wide range of his observations, his public spirit, and his acts 
of beneficence, had given him a commanding influence in society. 
The gentleness and refinement of his manners, and the delicacy of 
his feelings in the social and domestic relations, had endeared him 
to a numerous circle of relatives and friends. 

" And what were his reflections in review of the whole, in con- 
nection with the distressing scenes of the last period of life ? 'All 
is as the flower of the gi-ass : the wind passeth over it, and it is 
gone.' All on earth is transient ; all in eternity is substantial and 
enduring. His language was, ' I am a sinner. But God is mer- 
ciful. The only ground of acceptance before him, is through the 
great Mediator.' From this mercy, through this Mediator, is de- 
rived our solace under this heavy bereavement. On this, rest the 
hopes of the mourners, that they shall meet the deceased with joy, 
at the resurrection of the just." 



ELI WHITNEY. 133 

The following account is given of Mr. Whitney's character, — 
a character not often met with in the common walks of life. 

His manners were conciliatory, and his whole appearance such 
as to inspire universal respect. Among his particular friends, no 
man was more esteemed. Some of the earliest of Iris intimate as- 
sociates were also among the latest. With one or two of the 
bosom friends of his youth, he kept up a correspondence by letter 
for thirty years, ■with marks of continually increasmg regard. His 
sense of honor was high, and his feelings of resentment and hidig- 
nation occasionally strong. He could, however, be cool when his 
opponents were heated ; and, though sometimes surprised by pas- 
sion, yet the imparalleled trials of patience which he had sustained 
did not render him petulant, nor did his strong sense of the injuries 
he had suffered in relation to the cotton gin, impair the natural 
serenity of his temper. But the most remarkable trait in the char- 
acter of Mr. Whitney aside from his inventive powers, was his 
perseverance ; and this is the more remarkable because it is so com- 
mon to find men of great powers of mechanical invention deficient 
in tlfis quaUty. This it was which led him through scenes of trial 
and almost unparalleled inisfortune, with that cahn, yet determined 
spirit which he so clearly manifested, and which finally led him to 
a period of prosperity from which he was snatched only by the 
hand of death. 

In person Mr. Whitney was considerably above the ordinaiy 
size, of a dignified carriage, and of an open, manly, and agreeable 
countenance. Indeed, he seems to have won the respect of ah with 
whom he conversed, and to have made himself friends wherever he 
went, by his modest, unassuming, yet agreeable manners, and by 
his superior skiU and ingenuity. 

In presenting to the public the foregoing sketch of the hfe of 
this extraordinary^ man, the aim has been to render the narrative 
useful to the enterprising mechanic and the man of business, to 
whom Whitney may be confidently proposed as a model. To 
such, it is believed, the details given respecting his various strug- 
gles and embarrassments, may afford a useful lesson, a fresh incen- 
tive to perseverance, and stronger impressions of the value of a 
character improved by intellectual cultivation, and adorned with 
all the moral virtues. 

Fabrics of cotton are now so famihar to us, and so universally 
diffused, that we are apt to look upon them rather as original gifts 
of nature than as recent products of human ingenuity. The fol- 
lowing statements however will show how exceedingly limited the 
cotton trade was previous to the invention of the cotton gin. 

In 1784, an American vessel arrived at Liverpool, having on 



134 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

board for part of her cargo, eight hags of cotton, which were seized 
by the officers of the customhouse, under the conviction that they 
could not be the growth of America. The following fact ascer- 
tained from old newspapers shows the limited extent of the cotton 
trade for the two subsequent years, viz : that the whole amount 
arrived at Liverpool from America was short of 120 bags. Now 
this article is equal in general to some millions miore than one half 
the whole value of our exports. The annual average growth is 
about one million of bales, amounting to several hundred millions 
of pounds, of which about one fifth is used in our own manufac- 
tories. 

We present, in conclusion, the following remarks of a distin- 
guished scholar, upon this great man, occasioned by a visit to the 
cemetery of New Haven, which sufficiently show in what estima- 
tion he is held by those capable of appreciating his merits. 

After alluding to the monument of Gen. Humphreys, who intro- 
duced the firm wooled sheep into the United States, the stranger 
remarks : " But Whitney's monument perpetuates the name of a 
still greater public benefactor. His simple name would have been 
epitaph enough, with the addition perhaps of ' the inventor of the 
cotton gin.' How few of the inscriptions in Westminster Abbey 
could be compared with that ! Who is there that, like him, has 
given his country a machine — ^the product of his own skill — which 
has furnished a large part of its population, ' from childhood to age, 
with a lucrative employment ; by which their debts have been paid 
off"; their capitals increased ; their lands trehled in value ?'* It 
may be said indeed that this belongs to the physical and material 
nature of man, and ought not to be compared with what has been 
done by the intellectual benefactors of mankind ; the Miltons, the 
Shakspeares, and the Newtons. But is it quite certain that any 
thing short of the highest intellectual vigor — the brightest genius — 
is sufficient to invent one of these extraordinary machines ? Place 
a common mind before an oration of Cicero and a steam engine, 
and it will despair of rivalling the latter as much as the former ; 
and we can by no means be persuaded, that the peculiar aptitude 
for combining and applying the simple powers of mechanics, so as 
to produce these marvellous operations, does not imply a vivacity 
of the imagination, not inferior to that of the poet and the orator." 
And in concluding he asks, — " Has not he who has trebled the value 
of land, created capital, rescued the population from the necessity 
of emigrating, and covered a waste with plenty — has not he done 

* The words of Mr. Justice Johnson of South Carolina, in the opinion in th 
case of Whitney versus Carter. 



ELI WHITNEY. 



135 



a service to the country of the highest moral and intellectual char- 
acter ? Prosperity is the parent of civilization, and all its refine- 
ments ; and every family of prosperous citizens added to the com- 
munity, is an addition of so many thinking, inventing, moral, and 
immortal natures." 

His tomb is after the model of that of Scipio at Rome. It is 
simple and beautiful, and promises to endure for years. It bears 
the following inscription. 

ELI WHITNEY, 

The inventor of the Cotton Gin. 

Of useful science and arts, the efficient patron and improver. 

In the social relations of life, a model of excellence. 

While private aflFection weeps at his tomb, his country honors his memory. 

Bom Dec. 8, 1765.— Died Jan. 8, 1825. 




DAVID BUSHNELL, 

THE ORIGINATOR OF SUBMARINE WARFARE. 



Early attempts at submarine navigation. — Drebell's boat. — The invention of an 
Englishman, for entering sunken ships. — ^Worcester. — Birth of BushneU.— 
Ltirlv Character. — Receives a collegiate education. — Account of his first ex- 
periments. — Description of his submarine boat, and magazine. — Endeavors to 
blow up the British ship of war Eagle in the harbor of New York. — Blows up 
the tender of his Majesty's ship Cerberus, off New London. — Contrives a new 
expedient to destroy the British shipping in the Delaware. — " Battle of the 
Kegs." — Dejected at the issue of his experunents, leaves for France. — ^Returns 
and settles in Georgia. — His Death. 

Since the invention of the diving bell in the sixteenth century, 
we have accounts of several projects for submarine navigation, 
among which the following are most prominent. " A scheme is said 
to have been tried in the reign of James the First, by Cornelius 
Drebell, a famous English projector, who, we are told by Mr. Boyle, 
made a submarine vessel which would carry twelve rowers, be- 
sides the passengers ; and that he also discovered a liquid which 
had the singular property of restoring the air when it became im- 
pure by breathing. This last circumstance, with the number of 
persons enclosed in the machine and the imperfect state of mechan- 
ics at the period alluded to, renders the whole story extremely im- 
probable, though it shows clearly that the idea had been entertained 
and perhaps some attempt made. Another contrivance is men- 
tioned by Mr. Martin, in his Philosophia Britannica, as the inven- 
tion of an Englishman, consisting of strong thick leather, which 
contained half a hogshead of air, so prepared that none could 
escape, and constructed in such a manner that it exactly fitted the 
arms and legs, and had a glass placed in the fore part of it. When 
he put on this apparatus he could not only walk on the ground at 
the bottom of the sea, but also enter the cabin of a sunken ship and 
convey goods out of it at pleasure. The inventor is said to have 
carried on his business for more than forty years, and to have grown 
rich by it." 

It is evident from the perusal of the following pages, that the 
plans of Bushnell were almost entirely original ; and he appears ta 



DAVID BUSHNELL. 137 

have greatly advanced, if not actually to have originated, submarine 
navigation. In its agplication as a means of warfare, we must give 
him the entire credit of originality ; although Worcester in his 
Centmy or Hundred of Inventions, vaguely alludes to something 
of the kind, there is no evidence of its application, and as far as 
regards benefits to subsequent experiments, it is entirely useless. 

The efforts of Bushnell in the revolutionaiy, and of Fulton duiing 
the late war, at the time attracted considerable attention, and greatly 
excited the fears* of the enemy. Although, for obvious reasons, 
the anticipated success did not attend these experiments, v/e must 
remember that " invention is progressive ;" and while we hear 
them derided as visionaiy, we should reflect that such has ever 
been the fate, in their incipient stages, of the most useful inventions. 
The day may not be far distant, when another Bushnell "wiU arise 
CO advance submarine warfare to such perfection as to render it an 
important auxiliary in coast defence. 

David Bushnell was born in Saybrook, Connecticut, some time 
about the year 1742. His parents were agriculturists of rather 
moderate circumstances, and resided in a very secluded part of the 
town. Here in attendance upon the duties of the paternal farm 
young Bushnell passed the earlier portion of his life, and is only 
remembered as being a very modest, retiring young man, shunning 
all society, and bound down to his books. 

On the death of his father, which happened when he was about 
twenty-seven years of age, Bushnell sold his inheritance and re- 
moved to the central portion of the town for the purpose of pi'epar- 
ing for college, — the attainment of a liberal education having long 
been with him an object of his most ardent wishes. As is custom- 
ary in the New England villages, the pastor of the society, the 
Rev. John Devotion, assisted him in his studies. 

One of Jiis fellow townsmen Mr. Elias TuUy, becoming ac- 
quainted with him and admiring his character, veiy generously 
offered him a home under his own roof, where he remained until 
his entrance into Yale college in 1771. 

We are ignorant of the origin of Mr. Bushnell's conceptions re- 
specting submarine warfare, but he appears to have turned his at- 
tention to the subject in the earlier portions of his collegiate career, 
so that on graduating in 1775, his plans were advanced to ma- 
turity. 

* It is well known that during tlie experiments of Fulton, the British ship- 
ping were very cautious in approaching our shores. A gentleman, who was 
taken prisoner by a vessel of war in Long Island Sound, describes the anxiety of 
the oificers as being so great, that they made a regular practice at certain times 
of day, of dragging ropes under the ship's bottom. This course, it is believed, 
was universally practised by the enemy while anchoring off our coast 



138 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

" The first experiment was made with about two ounces of gun- 
powder, to prove to some influential men that powder would burn 
under water. In the second trial there were two pounds of gun- 
powder enclosed in a wooden bottle, and fixed under a hogshead, 
with a two inch oak plank between the hogshead and the powder. 
The hogshead was loaded with stones as deep as it could swim ; 
a wooden pipe primed with powder descended through the lower 
head of the hogshead, and thence through the plank into the powder 
contained in the bottle. A match put to the priming exploded the 
powder with a tremendous effect, casting a great body of water 
with the stones and ruins many feet into the air. 

" He subsequently made many experiments of a similar nature, 
some of them with large quantities of powder, all of which produced 
very violent explosions, much moi*e than sufficient for any purposes 
he had in view. 

" When finished, the external appearance of his torpedo bore 
some resemblance to two upper tortoise shells of equal size, placed 
in contact, leaving, at that part which represents the head of the 
animal, a flue or opening sufficiently capacious to contain the ope- 
rator, and air to support him thirty minutes. At the bottom, op- 
posite to the entrance, was placed a quantity of lead for ballast. 
The operator sat upright and held an oar for rowing forward or 
backward, and was furnished with a rudder for steering. An ap- 
erture at the bottom with its valve admitted water for the purpose 
of descending, and two brass forcing pumps served to eject the 
water within when necessary for ascending. The vessel was made 
completely water-tight, furnished with glass windows for the admis 
sion of light, with ventilators and air pipes, and was so ballasted 
with lead fixed at the bottom as to render it solid, and obviate all 
danger of oversetting. Behind the submarine vessel was a place 
above the rudder for carrying a large powder magazine ; this was 
made of two pieces of oak timber, large enough, when hollowed out, 
to contain one hundred and fifty pounds of powder, with the appa- 
ratus used for firing it, and was secured in its place by a screw 
turned by the operator. It was lighter than water, that it might 
rise against the object to which it was intended to be fastened. 

" Within the magazine was an apparatus constructed to run any 
proposed period under twelve hours ; when it had run out its tui'n, 
it unpinioned a strong lock, resembling a gun-lock, which gave fire 
to the powder. This apparatus was so pinioned, that it could not 
possibly move, until, by casting off the magazine from the vessel, 
it was set in motion. The skilful operator could swim so low on 
the surface of the water, as to approach very near a ship in the 
night, without fear of being discovered ; and might, if he chose, 



DAVID BUSHNELL, 139 

approach the stem or stern above water, with very little danger. 
He could, sink very quickly, keep at any necessary depth, and row 
a great distance in any direction he desired without coming to the 
surface. When he rose to the top he could soon obtain a fresh 
supply of air, and, if necessary, descend again and pursue his 
course. 

" Mr. Bushnell found that it required many trials and considera- 
ble instruction to make a man of common ingenuity a skilful ope- 
rator. The first person whom he employed was his brother, who 
was exceedingly ingenious, and made himself master of it, but was 
taken sick before he had an opportunity to make a trial of his skill. 
Having procured for a substitute a sergeant of one of the Connec 
ticut regiments, and given him such instructions as time would 
allow, he was directed to try an experiment on the Eagle, a sixty- 
four gun ship, lying in the harbor of New York, and commanded 
by Lord Howe. Gen. Putnam placed himself on the wharf to 
witness the result. 

" The sergeant went under the ship and attempted to fix the 
wooden screw into her bottom, but struck, as he supposed, a bar of 
iron, which passed from the i-udder hinge, and was spiked under the 
ship's quarter. Had he moved a few inches, which might have 
been done without rowing, there is no doubt he might have 
found wood where he could have fixed the screw ; — or if the ship 
had been sheathed with copper, it might easily have been pierced. 
But for want of skill and experience in managing the vessel, in an 
attempt to move to another place, he passed out from under the 
ship. After seeking her in vain for some time, he rowed some 
distance and rose to the surface of the water, but found daylight 
so far advanced that he dared not to renew the attempt, for fear of 
being discovered by the sentinels on duty. He said he could easily 
have fastened the magazine under the stern of the ship, above 
water, as he rowed up and touched it before he descended. Had 
it been done, the explosion of the one hundred and fifty pounds of 
powder, contained in the magazine, must have been fatal to the 
ship. 

" In returning from the ship to New York, the operator passed 
near Governor's Island, and thought he was discovered by the Bri- 
tish stationed there. In haste to avoid the danger, he cast off his 
magazine, imagining it retarded him in the swell, which was very 
considerable. The internal apparatus was set to run just one hour ; 
at the expiration of the allotted time it blew up with tremendous 
violence, throwing a vast column of water to an amazing height in 
the air, much to the astonishment of the enemy. 

" Some other attempts were made on the Hudson, in one of 



140 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

which the operator in going towards the ship lost sight of her, 
and went a great distance beyond. The tide ran so stiyng as to 
baffle all further effort. 

" In the year 1777, Mr. Bushnell made an attempt from a whale- 
boat against the Cerberus frigate, lying at anchor off New London, 
in drawing a machine against her side by means of a line. The 
machine was loaded with powder to be exploded by a gun-lock, 
which was to be unpinioned by an apparatus to be turned by being 
brought along side of the frigate. This machine fell in with a 
schooner at anchor astern of the frigate, and becoming fixed, it ex- 
ploded and demolished the vessel. 

" Commodore Simmons being on board of the Cerberus, addressed 
an official letter to Sir Peter Parker, describing this singular dis- 
aster. Being at anchor to the westward of the town with a schooner 
which he had taken, about eleven o'clock in the evening he disco- 
vered a line towing astern from the bows. He believed that some 
person had veered away by it, and immediately began to haul in. 
A sailor belonging to the schooner taking it for a fishing line, laid 
hold of it and drew in about fifteen fathoms. It was buoyed up by 
small pieces tied to it at regular distances. At the end of the rope 
a machine was fastened too heavy for one man to pull up, for it 
exceeded one hundred pounds in weight. The other people of the 
schooner coming to his assistance, they drew it upon deck. While 
' the men, to gratify their curiosity, were examining the machine, it 
exploded, blew the vessel into pieces, and set her on fire. Three 
men were killed, and a fourth blown into the water, much injured. 
On subsequent examination the other part of the line was discovered 
buoyed up in the same manner ; this the commodore ordered to be 
instantly cut away, for fear (as he termed it) of ' hauling up another 
of the infernals !' 

" These machines were constructed with wheels furnished with 
irons sharpened at the end, and projecting about an inch, in order 
to strike the sides of the vessel when hauling them up, thereby set- 
ting the wheels in motion, which in the space of five minutes causes 
the explosion. Had the whole apparatus been brought to act upon 
a ship at the same time, it must have occasioned prodigious de- 
struction. 

" Mr. Bushnell contrived another ingenious expedient to effect 
his favorite object. He fixed a large number of kegs, charged 
\vith powder, to explode on coming in contact with any thing while 
floating along with the tide. 

" In December, 1777, he set his squadron of kegs afloat in the 
Delaware above the British shipping. The kegs were set adrift 




DESTRUCTION OF A BRITISH TENDER BY A TORPEDO. 



DAVID BUSHNELL. 



143 



in the night, to fall with the ebb on the shipping ; but the proper 
distance could not be well ascertained, and they were set adrift 
too remotely from the vessels, so that they were obstructed and 
dispersed by the ice. They approached, however, in the day- 
time, and one of them blew up a boat, others exploded, and occa- 
sioned the greatest consternation and alarm among the British 
seamen. The British soldiers actually manned the wharves and 
shipping at Philadelphia, and discharged their small arms and 
cannon at eveiy thing they could see floating in the river during 
the ebb tide. This incident has received the name of ' the Battle 
of the Kegs,' and has furnished the subject of an excellent and 
humoi'ous song by the Hon. Francis Hopkinson, which, as it is an 
amusing relic of the times, we here insert." 



THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS :— A Song. 



Tune — " Moggy Lawder." 



Gallants attend, and hear a friend 
Trill forth harmonious ditty ; 

Strange things I'll tell, which late befell 
In Philadelphia city, 

'Twas early day, as poets say, 
Just when the sun was rising, 

A soldier stood on log of wood. 
And saw a sight surprising. 

As in amaze he stood to gaze, — 
The truth can't be denied, — 

He spied a score of kegs, or more. 
Come floating down the tide. 

A sailor too, in jerkin blue. 
The strange appearance viewing. 

First " d — d his eyes," in great surprise, 
Then said, " some mischief's brewing: 

" These kegs now hold the rebels bold, 
Pack'd up like pickled herring ; 

And they're come down t'attack the town 
In this new way of ferrying." 

The soldier flew, — the sailor too, — 
And almost scared to death, 

Wore out their shoes to spread the news. 
And ran till out of breath. 

Now up and down, throughout the town. 
Most frantic scenes were acted ; 

And some ran here and some ran there 
Like men almost distracted. 



Some_^re.' cried, which some demed, 
But said, the earth had quaked : 

And girls and boys, with hideous noise, 
Ran through the streets, half naked. 

Howe, in a fright, starts upright, 

Awoke by such a clatter ; 
Rubbing both eyes, he loudly cries, 

" For God's sake, what's the matter''" 

At his bedside he then espied 

Sir Ekskine at command ; 
Upon one foot he had one boot, 

And t'other in his hand. 

" Arise ! arise !" Sir Erskine cries ; 

" The rebels — more's the pity — 
Without a boat are all afloat. 

And rang'd before the city ; 

" The motley crew, in vessels new, 
With Satan for their guide, 

Pack'd up in bags, or wooden kegs, 
Come driving down the tide ; 

" Therefore prepare for bloody war; 

These kegs must all be routed, 
Or surely we despised shall be, 

And British courage doubted." 

The royal band now ready stand, 

AU rang'd in dread array. 
With stomachs stout, to see it out, 

And make a bloody day. 



144 



AMERICAN MECHANICS. 



The cannons roar from shore to shore, 
The small arms make a rattle ; 

Since war began, I'm sure no man 
Ere saw so strange a battle : 

The rebel vales, the rebel dales. 
With rebel trees surrounded ; 

The distant woods, the hills and floods, 
With rebel echoes sounded. 

The fish below swam to and fro, 
Attack'd from every quarter ; 

" Why sure," thought they, " the devil's 
to pay 
'Mongst folks above the water." 

The kegs, 'tis said, though strongly made 
Of rebel staves and hoops. 



Could not oppose their pow'rful foes, 
The conq'ring British troops. 

From mom to night, these men of 
might 

Display'd amazing courage : 
And when the sun was fairly down, 

Retir'd to sup their porridge. 

A hundred men, with each a pen, 

Or more, upon my word. 
It is most true, would be too few 

Their valor to record ; 

Such feats did they perform that day 

Upon those wicked kegs. 
That years to come, if they get home, 

They'll make their boast and brags. 



The unfortunate issue of Mr. Bushnell's efforts rendered him 
very dejected. He had been disappointed in his expected support 
from government, having spent nearly all, if not the whole of his 
own property in the course of his experiments. Soon after the 
close of the war, he left his native country for France. The 
object of this voyage is not known ; and it was always supposed, 
until within a very short time, that he had perished amid some one 
of the sanguinary scenes of the French revolution. But it appears 
that, after remaining in Europe a number of years, he returned 
and settled in Georgia, under the assumed name of Bush, where 
he lived in a retired manner, gaining his livehhood by the practice 
of medicine. The tidings of his death, in 1826, accompanied by 
a handsome bequest, the product of his professional industry, was 
the first information his relations had received of him for a period 
of nearly forty years. 




AMOS WHITTEMORE. 



AMOS WHITTEMORE, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE CAED MACHINE. 



Birth. — Early traits of character. — Is apprenticed to a gunsmith. — Industry. — 
Constructs a wooden clock without a model. — Invents a machine for measur- 
ing the progress of vessels. — Becomes a partner in manufacturing cotton and 
wool cards.— Description and imperfection of the old method of making cards. — 
Sets about the construction of the card machine. — Wonderful perseverance. — 
Meets with an unexpected obstacle. — Overcomes the difficulty in a dream. — Com.- 
pletes the invention. — Its beauty and precision. — Secures the patent. — Visits 
England, to secure a patent there. — Taken prisoner by a French man-of-war. — 
Release. — Dyer's card establishment at Manchester. — Return. — Forms a co- 
partnership to manufacture card machines. — Slow progress and exhausted 
means. — Visits VV^ashington, and exhibits the invention. — It excites universal 
admiration.— Congress renews the patent. — Establish a branch in New York. 
— The New York Manufacturing Company purchase their whole interest.— 
Its succeeding history. — PhcEnix Bank. — Singular chain of circumstances. — 
Whittemore purchases a country seat, and retires from active Ufe. — Projects 
an orrery on a new plan. — Feeble health. — Death. — Character. — Value of the 
card machine. — Conclusion. 

The incidents in the following memoir are principally such as 
could be gathered from the memory of one who intimately knew 
the subject of it while living, and always, entertained for him and 
his memory a high regard. The writer therefore feels some diffi- 
dence in recording as strict fact, every part of the relation made 
to him, inasmuch as the lapse of years may have effaced in some 
degree the recollection of many of the events. It is beheved, how- 
ever, that its leading features are essentially correct, and as noth- 
ing stated can affect others, he feels relieved from responsibihty. 

Amos Whittemore, who, by his extraordinary invention for 
making cotton and wool cards, merits a prominent place among the 
first mechanics of the age, was the second of five brothers, and 
was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 19th, 1759. His 
father was an agriculturist of but moderate means, whose industry 
enabled him to rear a large family, and give to his children the 
mere rudiments of an English education. Of the five brothers, it 
is unnecessary to allude to either than the two next in age, William 
and Samuel, who, as will appear in the sequel, became interested 
in business with that brother whose ingenuity laid the foundation 
of their fortunes. 

The youthful days of Whittemore were passed in the usual 
manner of lads in the country, chiefly in assisting his parent in 



148 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

the cultivation of the farm. At an early age he manifested a re- 
markable talent for mechanical pursuits, together with a mind dis- 
posed to the contemplation of philosophical and abstruse science. 

Aware that he must depend almost entirely upon his own re- 
sources, not only for his maintenance, but for his future advance- 
ment, it was obvious that he must soon choose a profession which 
would promote these ends. Free to make his own choice, he se- 
lected the trade of a gunsmith, as one which, while it presented a 
field for the cultivation of mechanical taste, offered the prospects 
of a fruitful harvest. 

On becoming an apprentice, he not only zealously applied him. 
self to the interests of his master, but devoted his leisure to volun- 
tary employment. At this period he invented many ingenious and 
useful implements ; and such was his proficiency, that long ere the 
expiration of his term of service, his employer confessed himself 
unable to give further instruction, and advised him to commence 
business for himself. 

Among the many instances of his skill, may be noticed that of 
an excellent clock made without a model, which remained many 
years in the family, proving a useful, as well as gratifying me- 
mento of his early ingenuity. This was among the first of the 
kind, although now there is scarcely a cottage in our wide spread 
country that does not boast of at least one of these indispensable 
as well as ornamental pieces of furniture. He also invented a 
machine constructed with dial hands and figures, to be placed in 
the water at a vessel's stern, for the purpose of accurately mea- 
suring its progress. At the suggestion of a medical friend, a 
Dr. Putnam of Charlestown, he invented a self-acting loom, for 
weaving duck, which, from the best information we possess, is 
believed to be the same in principle as the celebrated power loom 
now so universally used. Owing to the unsettled state of business 
at this period, and the want of encouragement in the useful arts, 
these productions, notwithstanding their value, were suffered to lie 
neglected and forgotten. 

For years succeeding the expiration of his apprenticeship, 
Whittemore was variously, though to himself, in a pecuniary point, 
unprofitably employed. At length he became interested with his 
brother William, and five others, in the manufacture of cotton and 
wool cards, conducting their business in Boston under the firm of 
Giles, Richards, and Co., and supplying nearly all the cards then 
used in the country. Amos devoted himself to the mechanical 
department, as being the most agreeable and useful. 

Hitherto, the manufacture of cotton and wool cards, which had 
already become an article of great demand, was attended with 



AMOS WHITTEMORE. I49 

much expense, owing to the imperfection of the machinery, and 
the amount of manual labor required. But two machines, and 
those of simple construction, were as yet known ; one for cutting 
and bending the wire into staples, and another for piercing the 
sheets of leather with holes, into which the staples were placed, 
one by one, with the hand. This last operation gave employment 
to hundreds of the younger members of families in New England : 
and it was not unamusing to witness groups of children, of both 
sexes, engaged in this easy labor, their tiny fingers rapidly placing 
staple after staple into its appropriate place, as eager to perform 
their allotted task as they were to count the few pence earned at 
the dear expense of a temporary deprivation of their youthful 
sports. This, the only method then known, combined both the 
disadvantage of great expense and the impossibility of making the 
cards sutficiently perfect to properly prepare the raw material. 

Whittemore, ever bent upon improvements in machineiy, at 
once saw the importance, and, of course, the immense value of a 
machine so constructed as to be enabled, by its own independent 
action, to hold the sheet of leather, pierce the holes, draw the wire 
from the reel, and shape and stick it into its proper place : thus, 
by the combination of a series of successive independent opera- 
tions, complete the card. After that mature reflection which 
always characterized him, he imparted to his brother William 
the conception of that idea which he so ardently desired to exe- 
cute. Encouraged by the advice and assistance of this brother, 
he engaged in the apparently insurmountable task, well convinced 
of the rich reward awaiting him if he could but embody in a 
machine the picture of his imagination. With ardor and unre- 
mitting zeal he prosecuted his labors, devoting his whole mental 
and physical energies to the undertaking. Such was his diligeni.'^?, 
and so incessantly did it occupy his time, that he not only impaired 
his health, but frequently neglected the demands of nature, to the 
extent that food and sleep seemed to him of but secondary conse- 
quence. Slowly, but steadily he progressed ; and wliile his bodily 
strength daily diminished, the fire of his mind seemed to burn with 
increased enthusiasm. Like the discoverer of our western world, 
he had staked, as it were, his reputation upon this effort, and, 
though storms of discouragement buffeted him at every point, and 
a boundless sea of toil appeared between him and his uncertain 
haven, yet he undauntingly persevered almost against hope. 

Baffled as was his skill to the utmost, he at length so far com- 
pleted his machine as to cause it to draw the wire from the reel, 
cut and shape it, pierce the holes in the leather, and even place the 
staples firmly in the sheet ; but it was yet necessary to bend the 



150 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

wire after it was placed : without this, all was in vain ; time and 
health had been valuelessly sacrificed, and that ambition that ever 
animates to action the inventive mind, seemed in him about to re- 
ceive a fatal check. Notwithstanding the encouragement of his 
friends — who, beheving that he could finally succeed, were, if pos- 
sible, more zealous than himself — he gradually became irresolute, 
and frequently declared his inability to make any farther progress. 

The labor of nearly three months lay before him, an unfinished, 
yet wonderfully ingenious structure ; but, like the famed ivory balls 
of the Chinese, while it was admirable for the skill displayed in 
its workmanship, was valueless. Fortunately, he was not long 
doomed to look upon his work as a mere monument of labor lost. 
While the ingenuity of his mind had in vain been taxed to the ut- 
most, it was, as it would seem, to miraculous interposition that he 
owed his ultimate success. Extraordinary as it may appear, and 
doubted as it may be by some, it is, nevertheless, a fact, that during 
a night succeeding a day of despondency and gloom, and at an 
hour when his faculties were wrapped in slumber, in a vision was 
disclosed to him the complete accomplishment of his hopes. 
Scarcely had the following day dawned, when, with a heart swell- 
ing with emotions of eagerness and joy, he once more revisited 
the chamber where he had so earnestly toiled, and, ere he broke 
his fast on that morning, he was enabled to announce to his brother 
and friends his entire success. 

Thus, within the short space of three months, he had, by un- 
tiring industry, commenced and completed an invention which at 
once revolutionized the manufacture of cards, and which, for in- 
genuity of construction, precision of movement, rapidity of per- 
formance, and perfection of execution, may challenge comparison 
with any mechanical efibrt of the human mind. It must be studi- 
ously examined to be justly appreciated ; and, with a distinguished 
man* of our day, — one alike eminent for his scientific attainments 
as for his accomplishments as a statesman, — we may say, that 
those who examine its complicated performance can compare it 
with nothing more nearly than the machinery of the human system. 

This anecdote, so intimately connected with the inventior., was 
one which Whittemore frequently related, and it was gratifying to 
observe with what ardor he told the story of his toil ; upon no part 
of which would he dwell with more enthusiastic delight than this 
singular dream. 

The brothers, fully aware, if successful, of the value of such a 
machine, had, in a measure, kept secret the fact of Whirtemcre's 

* Edward Everett 



AMOS WHITTEMORE. 151 

being engaged in its construction. When, therefore, completed, 
steps were immediately taken to secure to the fortunate inventor, 
and his associates, the pecuniary advantages to be derived ; and 
on the 2d of June, 1797, a patent right was granted for a term of 
fourteen years. The importance of securing a patent right in 
England, as well as in the United States, was not lost sight of. 
At this time, during the administration of the elder Adams, but 
few years had elapsed since the establishment of our national inde- 
pendence, and the relations of our country with England were unset, 
tied, while with France we were engaged in naval hostilities. To 
undertake a voyage across the Atlantic, under such circumstances, 
and at this early period, was considered of almost as much im- 
nortance as, in our time, to circumnavigate the globe. To many 
of the habits of Wliittemore, the project of visiting England, and 
there to wade through the difficulties of securing a patent, would 
have been thought too great an enterprise : at most, that the ad- 
vantages to accrue would not be commensurate with the risk and 
expenditure. Not so thought the brothers ; and the requisite ar- 
rangements being made, it became the duty as well as pleasure 
of Whittemore to visit that country. At this period, but two ships 
traded regularly between Boston and London, the Gralen and the 
Minerva ; in the latter of which he embarked in the spring of 
1799, accompanied by an English gentleman named Sharpe, who 
evinced great interest in the machine, and is believed to have been 
largely benefited by it in England. 

Being unacquainted with the circumstances connected with this 
visit, it is out of our power to give a detail of its events ; it is 
sufficient, however, to know, that the invention soon became fully 
appreciated, and though numerous offers were made, either to pur- 
chase the right or become interested in its profits, nothing of con- 
sequence was done to remunerate the inventor. Anxious to re- 
turn, he left his business in the hands of those in whom he reposed 
confidence, and in the spring of 1800 sailed for Boston, where he 
arrived in safety after a passage of fifty-nine days, and a year's 
absence from home. Either on his outward or homeward voyage, 
the vessel which he was in was captured by the French, but the 
passengers were released without serious inconvenience. 

Justly entitled as he was to a rich reward in that country, which 
has since been so largely benefited by this invention, he was de- 
spoiled of his rights, and realized little else than expense and labor. 

No sooner was the machine generally understood in England, 
than it was perceived how fatal its successful operation would be- 
come to the working classes engaged in the manufacture of cards. 
The greatest caution and secrecy were therefore observed, lest the 



152 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

threats of the people, to mob those engaged in making the ma- 
chinery, would be carried into execution. The only safe method 
was, to have parts of the machine made in different places, and 
put together when finished. 

The most extensive, if not the only establishment now in opera- 
tion in England for manufacturing machine cards, is that of Mr. 
Dyer, in Manchester, who has conducted the business with great 
success ; through whose agency the machinery has been carried 
into France and the other parts of the continent, and is even 
supposed by many to be his invention, though he himself acknow- 
ledges its proper source. 

The copartnership of Giles, Richards, and Co. having expired 
some time, Whittemore, with his brother, had been engaged in 
the manufacture of cards upon the old plan. On his return from 
England, they formed a connection with their friend, Mr. Robert 
Williams, of Boston, who possessed the requisite means for car- 
rying on the business with the improved machinery, though on a 
limited scale. 

Until the year 1809, little had been done beside constructing 
expensive machines, and making the necessary preparations for 
the manufacture of cards. The patent was at this time within 
two years of its expiration, and their treasury nearly exhausted. 
Serious apprehensions were therefore entertained that, when about 
to realize a remuneration for their time and expense, others, by 
successful competition, would step in and wrest from them the 
fruits of all their toils. 

During the session of the congress of 1808 and 1809, Whitte- 
more, with his brother William, visited Washington, carrying with 
them a complete machine, of full size, as a model for exhibition, 
which was shown to the members and other men of distinction. 
It not only elicited universal admiration, but of such advantage 
was it considered to the country, especially to the cotton and 
wool-growing interest, that many members, among them Matthew 
Lyon of Vermont, a gentleman distinguished for his abilities, 
were disposed to grant a perpetual patent to the inventor and 
his heirs. The result, however, was, that on the 3d of March, 
1809, an act received the unanimous vote of congress, granting a 
renewal of the patent for fourteen years from the expiration of the 
first term. 

The city of New York had long since given evidence of it, 
pecuUar advantages for trade and commerce ; and as early as the 
year 1803, a branch of the business was established in that city, 
under the management of a younger brother, Mr. Samuel Whitte- 
more, who became a partner with the brothers. As may be 



AMOS WHITTEMORE. 153 

readily supposed, the importance of the machine attracted no 
little attention among the enterprising of this metropolis ; and 
soon after the renewal of the patent, efforts were made to estabUsh 
a company, with a capital of sufficient magnitude to carry on an 
extensive business, and thus obtain the certam profit that a mono- 
poly such as this seemed to ensure. 

Men of fortune and energy gave it their support ; and during 
the session of the New York legislature of 1812, an act was passed, 
iacorporating the " New York Manufacturing Company," with a 
capital of about $800,000, of which $300,000 was directed to be 
employed in manufacturing cotton and wool cards, and building 
the necessary macliinery and factories, while the balance was to 
be employed in banking. ' 

Among the first acts of this company, was to purchase of the 
Messrs. Whittemore their patent right and entire stock of machine- 
ry ; which was effected on the 20th of July, 1812, for the sum of one 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The company having purchased 
a site on New York island, commenced the erection of extensive 
works ; and the usual custom in public buildings of laying the corner 
stone, was here observed with much ceremony. And now for the 
first time, it may be said, that the business had commenced on fa- 
vorable auspices, so far as capital and an intelligent direction was 
a guarantee of success. 

Our country, being at this time engaged in an active, and to our 
commerce, a destructive warfare with England, a country that had 
always supplied us with cotton and woollen, as well as other goods, 
a check, if not a total suspension, was thus placed upon farther im- 
portations, and the manufacture of these fabrics was thrown upon 
ourselves. Cotton and woollen factories were erected as if by the 
magic of Aladdin's lamp, and they, with the demand from all parts 
of the country for hand cards, gave such an impetus to the business 
that the company were most actively and profitably engaged. 

But the peace of 1815, an event, so much and so devoutly wished 
for by our suffering country, proved injurious to the association. 
Sudden and immense importations of foreign goods followed this 
event, and such was the insufficient protection then afforded to do- 
mestic industry, and so great was the demand for the raw material 
abroad, that our infant manufactories were compelled to stop, and 
scarcely a pound of cotton or wool remained at home. The com- 
pany thus found themselves with a large stock of machinery and 
cards, and no market. In the year 1818, after waiting in vain for 
a reaction, and the business being doubtless shackled by the un- 
wieldy management of a corporation, the company proposed and 
effected a sale of its entire manufacturing property to MessrSr 



154 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

Samuel and Timothy Whittemore, the former a brother, the latter 
a son of' the inventor. Mr. Timothy Whittemore almost immedi- 
ately thereafter relinquished his interest to his uncle, who became 
the sole proprietor, and conducted the business with varied success 
until within a few years. The New York manufacturing comparrj-, 
after this sale, with an increased capital, changed its title to that of 
the " Phoenix Bank," and continues to this day a popular banking 
institution. 

At the expiration of the patent in 1825, Mr. Samuel Whittemore 
sold several of his machines in anticipation of a rapid decline in 
the business, since the monopoly could no longer be retained ; and 
ftom that time the manufacture of cards by machinery has become 
so general, as to make it a business of comparatively small amount 
to any, but to a few old established firms. By a singular, though 
interesting chain of circumstances, the identical machines which 
the inventor himself assisted in building, after being out of his family 
for more than twenty-five years, have now become the property of 
his sons, and are used by them in West Cambridge, a smalltown near 
that which gave him birth. Their cards are well known for their 
uniform excellence, the stamp being to the consumer a sufficient 
guarantee of their quality. 

Although more than forty years have elapsed since the invention, 
such was the perfection with which it came from the mind of the 
inventor, that no essential improvements have ever been suggested. 
Attempts were frequently made to defraud him of his well-earned 
fame, by claiming it as the production of others, but they have 
proved as abortive as the attempts to infringe upon the patent. 

After the sale of his interest, Whittemore retired from active 
life, and having purchased a pleasant estate in the town of West 
Cambridge, found that quiet and freedom from the many cares 
of business fife, so agreeable to his nature. Since the invention, he 
never seriously exerted his mechanical ingenuity, feeling, doubtless, 
content with the laurels already acquired. Having, however, ui 
early life entertained a deep interest in the science of astronomy, 
in later years he conceived the plan of a complete orrery, repre- 
senting the whole planetary system, each planet to describe its own 
orbit, and the combination acting Uke nature's own. Enfeebled by 
an impaired health, and the infirmities of age, he never matured 
this project, and at length he died, in the year 1828, at the age of 
sixty-nine, at his residence in West Cambridge, leaving a widow 
to lament the loss of a kind husband, his children an indulgent 
father, and his associates an amiable and devoted friend. To his 
family he was an example of one who lived a pure and blame- 
less life ; and though he left but an inconsiderable fortune, they 



AMOS WHITTEMORE. 155 

inherited a far brighter treasure in an unsullied reputation. Whit- 
temore was of a bland and conciliating disposition, even in temper, 
and in manners strikingly meditative, conversing but little, and 
often seen in profound mental study. 

The value that the card machine has been, and still is, not to 
this country alone, but to the whole manufacturing world, it is be- 
lieved even few now justly appreciate. With Whitney's cotton gin, it 
forms an important and necessary link in the chain of machinery 
which by their operation furnish to the world one of the most use- 
ful, as well as beautiful fabrics. How far it may have contributed, 
not only to perfect in quality, but to reduce it in cost, cannot be 
difficult to estimate. We may add, however, in conclusion, that not 
a cotton or woUen factory is reared, that does not rely upon 
the card machine to complete its own machinery, and the use 
of the hand card, in the southern states, has become as general as 
the culture of cotton itself. 



ROBERT FULTON. 



Birth and parentage. — Early ingenuity. — Becomes a painter.— Visits England. — 
Becomes an inmate in the family of Benjamin West. — Inland navigation. — Ex- 
cavating machine. — Visits France. — Turns his attention to submarine warfare. 
— Experiments. — British Government. — Bonaparte. — Constructs a plunging- 
boat, with which he remains under water an hour. — Blows up a vessel in the 
harbor of Brest with a submarine bomb. — Revisits England. — Blows up a Dan- 
ish brig. — Returns to the United States. — Anecdote. — Stationary torpedo. — 
Congress appropriate funds to carry on his experiments. — Report of the com- 
missioners.— Letter to the secretary of the navy. — Experiments on the sloop 
of war Argus. — Gun-harpoon and cable-cutter. — Steam navigation. — Chancellor 
Livingston. — Fulton's steam experiments in France. — Experiments with a 
steamboat on the Seine. — Commences building a steamboat in New York. — 
Orders an engine from England. — Description and success of the first experi- 
ment on the Hudson. — Redheffer's perpetual motion. — Builds a floating steam 
battery for government. — Launch. — Voyage of " Fulton the First." — Lawsuits. 
— Death. — Conclusion. 

This indefatigable man was born in Little Britain, Lancaster 
county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1765, of a respectable, though 
not opulent family. His father was a native of Kilkenny, in Ire- 
land, and his mother was of a respectable Irish family, residing in 
Pennsylvania. He had two sisters older than himself, besides a 
younger brother and sister. His patrimony was very small. In 
his infancy he received the rudiments of a common English educa- 
tion, and his pecuUar genius manifested itself at a very early age. 
All his hours of recreation were passed in the shops of mechanics, 
or in the use of his pencil. By the time he had attained the age of 
seventeen, he became so much of an artist, as to derive emolument 
from portrait and landscape painting in Philadelphia, where he re- 
mained till he was about twenty-one. 

When he became of age, he went to Washington county, and 
there purchased a Httle farm, on which he settled his mother, his 
father having died in 1768. After seeing his parent comfortably 
established in the home which he had provided for her, he set out 
with the intention of i-eturning to Philadelphia. On his way, he 
visited the warm springs of Pennsylvania, where he met with some 
gentlemen, who were so much pleased with the genius they discov- 
ered in his paintings, that they advised him to go to England, 
where tliey assured him he would meet with the patronage ol his 




ROBERT FULTON. 



ROBERT FULTON. 159 

countryman Mr. West, who had, even then, attained great celeb- 
rity. Mr. Fulton went to England, and his reception by Mr. West 
was such as he had been led to anticipate. That distinguished 
American was so well pleased with his promising and enterprising 
genius, and his amiable qualities, that he took him into his house, 
where he continued an inmate for several years. After leaving 
the family of Mr. West, he appears to have made the art of paint- 
ing his chief employment for some time. He spent two years in 
Devonshire, near Exeter, where he made many respectable ac- 
quaintances ; among others, he became known to the duke of 
Bridgewater, so famous for his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a 
nobleman celebrated for his love of science, and particularly for 
his attachment to the mechanic arts. With Lord Stanhope, Mr. 
Fulton held a correspondence for a long time, and they communi- 
cated to each other ideas on subjects towards which their minds 
were mutually directed. 

In 1793, we find Mr. Fulton actively engaged in a project to 
improve inland navigation ; for, even at that early day, he had 
conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks 
in his manuscripts with great confidence of its practicability. In 
May, 1774, he obtained from the British government a patent for 
a double inclined plane, to be used for transportation. An account 
of this may be seen in vol. xvii. of the Repertory of Arts. 

What were Mr. Fulton's pursuits for some years after this period 
it does not appear. In his preface to a description of his Nautilus, 
or plunging-boat, he says, that he had resided eighteen months in 
the great manufacturing town of Birmingham, where he must have 
acquired some of that practical knowledge in mechanics which he 
made so useful to his country, and indeed to all the world. In 
1804, when Mr. Fulton left Paris, he sent a large collection of his 
manuscripts to this country ; but unfortunately, the vessel in which 
they were sent was wrecked. The case containing the papers 
was recovered, but only a few fragments of the manuscripts were 
preserved. These, however, mark the genius of Fulton, and in- 
crease our regret that any productions of his strong and original 
mind which he thought worth presemng should be lost. It is 
owing to this misfortune that we have so few traces of Mr. Fulton's 
occupations at this period. But a mind hke his could never be 
idle, and it is evident that, at this time, it was still directed to- 
wards his favorite pursuits. 

In 1794, he submitted to the British Society for the Promotion 
of Arts and Commerce, an improvement of his invention in mills 
for sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the society 
and an honorary medal. He invented also, as is presumed, about 



160 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

this time, a machine for spinning flax, and another for making 
ropes, for both of which he obtained patents from the British gov- 
ernment. A mechanical contrivance for scooping out earth in 
certain situations, to form the channels for canals or aqueducts, 
which, as it is understood, has been much used in England, is also 
his invention. Indeed, the subject of canals appears chiefly to 
have engaged his attention at this time. He now, and probably 
for some time previous, professed himself a civil engineer, and 
under this title he pubhshed his work on canals, and in 1795, 
some essays on the same subject in the London Morning Star. 
In 1796, he published in London, his Treatise on the Improve- 
ment of Canal Navigation, in which he recommends small canals 
and boats of little burden ; and also inclined planes instead of 
locks, together with the various contrivances necessary to effect 
the passage of boats from one level to another. His plans were 
strongly recommended by the British Board of Agriculture, of 
which Sir John Sinclair was president. 

Mr. Fulton, throughout his course as a mechanist and civil en- 
gineer, derived great advantages from his talent for drawing and 
painting. He was an elegant and accurate draughtsman, which 
is proved by the plates annexed to the work we have mentioned. 
This gave him great facility in procuring the execution of his 
designs, and a great advantage over most who have engaged in 
similar pursuits. He seems, however, to have neglected his pencil 
as a painter for many years, till a short time before his death, 
when he resumed it to paint some portraits of his own family, and 
his success in executing these gave him much pleasure. 

Mr. Fulton, ever thoughtful of the interests of his own country, 
sent copies of his works to distinguished persons in America, ac- 
companied with letters, setting forth the advantages to be derived 
from internal communication by canals. 

Having obtained a patent for canal improvements from the 
British government, he went to France, with the intention of in- 
troducing them there ; but not meeting with much encouragement, 
he soon directed his mind to other important subjects ; though the 
canal system still occupied a portion of his thoughts. About this 
time, his thoughts were turned towards the subject of political 
economy, and he wrote a work, addressed to " the Friends of 
Mankind," in which he labors to show, that education and internal 
improvements would have a good effect on the happiness of a na- 
tion. He not only wished to see a free and speedy communica- 
tion between the different parts of a large country, but a universal 
free trade between all nations. He saw that it would take ages to 
establish the freedom of the seas by the common consent of na 



ROBERT FULTON. IQl 

tions ; he therefore turned his whole attention to find out some 
means of destroying ships of war, those engines of oppression, 
and to put it out of the power of any nation to maintain such a 
system ; and thus to compel every government to adopt the simple 
principles of education, industry, and a free circulation of its pro- 
duce. Out of such enlarged and philanthropic views and reflec- 
tions grew Mr. Fulton's inventions for submarine navigation and 
explosions, and with such patriotic motives did he prosecute them. 
Of these inventions we now proceed to give some account. 

In the year 1797, he became acquainted with Mr. Joel Barlow, 
our celebrated countryman, then residing in Paris, in whose family 
he hved seven years, during which he learned the French, and 
something of the German and Italian languages. He also studied 
the high mathematics, physics, chemistry, and perspective. 

In December, 1797, he made an experiment in company with 
Mr. Barlow, on the Seine, with a machine which he had con- 
structed, and by which he designed to impart to carcasses of gun- 
powder a progressive motion under water, and there to explode 
them ; but he was disappointed in its performance. He continued, 
however, to make experiments with a view to the accomplishment 
of his object, until he had perfected the plan for his submarine 
boat. 

A want of funds to enable him to carry his design into execu- 
tion, induced him to apply to the French Directory. They at first 
gave him reason to expect their aid, but after a long attendance at 
the public offices, he received a note, informing him that they had 
totally rejected his plan. Mr. Fulton was not to be discoui-aged, 
but pursued his inventions ; and having executed a handsome model 
of his machine, and a change in the directors having taken place, 
he presented his plan, and a commission was appointed to examine 
his pretensions ; but after three months attendance, he was again 
disappointed by finding his plan entirely rejected. Not yet, how- 
ever, discouraged, he offered liis project to the British government, 
through the ambassador from Holland ; but without success, al- 
though a commission was appointed to examine his models. But 
the French government at length changed ; and Bonaparte having 
placed himself at the head of it, Mr. Fulton presented an address 
to him, on which a commission was immediately appointed and 
assistance afforded, which enabled him to put some of his plans in 
practice. In the spring of 1801, Mr. Fulton repaired to Brest, to 
make experiments with the plunging-boat which he had constructed 
the preceding winter. This, as he says, had many imperfections 
natural to a first machine, and had been injured by rust, as parts 
which should have been of copper or brass were made of iron. 



162 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, he engaged in a course of 
experiments, which required no less courage than energy and per- 
severance. From a report of his proceedings to the committee 
appointed by the French executive, we learn, that on the third of 
July, 1801, he embarked with three companions on board his 
plunging-boat in the harbor of Brest, and descended to the depth 
of five, ten, fifteen, and so on to twenty-five feet ; but he did not 
attempt to go lower, because he found that his imperfect machine 
would not bear the pressure of the water at a greater depth. He 
remained below the surface an hour in utter darkness, which was 
very unpleasant, and candles were found to consume too much of 
the vital air ; so he caused a small window of thick glass to be 
made near the bow of his boat, which afforded him light enough 
to count the minutes on his watch. Having satisfied himself that 
he could have sufficient light under water ; that he could do a long 
time without fresh air, and descend to any depth or rise to the 
surface with facility ; his next object was to try the movements of 
his vessel, as well on the surface as under it. He found that she 
would tack and steer, and sail on a wind or before it, as well as 
any common sailing boat. He then struck her masts and sails ; 
to do which, and prepare for plunging, required about two minutes. 
Having plunged to a certain depth, he placed two men at the 
engine, which was intended to give her progressive motion, and 
one at the helm, while he, with a barometer before him, kept her 
balanced between the upper and lower waters. He found that 
with one hand he could keep her at any depth he pleased ; and 
that in seven minutes he had gone about the third of a mile. He 
could turn her round while under water, and return to the place 
he started from. These experiments were repeated for several 
days, till he became familiar with the operation of the machinery 
and the motion of the boat. He found that she was as obedient 
to her helm under water as any boat could be on the surface ; and 
that the magnetic needle traversed as well in one situation as in 
the other. 

On the 7th of August, Mr. Fulton descended with a store of air 
compressed into a copper globe, whereby he was enabled to remain 
under water four hours and twenty minutes. The success of these 
experiments determined him to try the effects of these inventions 
on the English ships, which were daily near the harbor of Brest. 
Satisfied with his boat, he next made some experiments with the 
torpedoes, or submarine bombs. A small vessel was anchored in 
the roads, and with a bomb containing about twenty pounds of 
powder, he approached within about two hundred yards, struck 
the vessel and blew her into atoms. A column of water and frag- 



ROBERT FULTON 163 

ments was blown near one hundred feet into the air. Tiiis experi- 
ment was made in the presence of the prefect of the department 
and a muhitude of spectators. 

Through the summer of 1801, and till the project was relin- 
quished on account of the season, Mr. Fulton appears to have been 
watching the Enghsh ships which were on the coast ; but though 
some of them daily approached off the harbor, yet none of them 
came so near, or anchored in such a situation, as to be exposed to 
the effects of his attempts. In one instance, he came very near a 
British seventy-four ; but she, just in time, made such a change of 
position as to save herself. The rulers of France were discouraged 
by this want of success, or rather of opportunity, and, so far from 
being willing to make farther advances for new experiments or 
efforts, they showed no disposition to fulfil the engagements they 
had already made with Mr. Fulton. The escape of the enemy's 
vessels seems to have lowered his invention so much in their es- 
timation, that they refused to give him any farther encouragement. 

The English had some information respecting the attempts 
which their enemies were making, but did not know to what ex- 
tent they had been carried. Much anxiety was expressed, which 
induced the British minister to commimicate with Mr. Fulton, the 
object of which was to deprive France of his services, and secure 
them to England. In this he was successful, and Mr. Fulton was 
induced to proceed to London, where he arrived in May, 1804. 
He soon had an interview with Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville. When 
Mr. Pitt first saw a drawing of a torpedo, with a sketch of the 
mode of applying it, and understood what would be the effect of 
the explosion, he said that if it were introduced into practice, it 
could not fail of annihilating all mihtary marines ; and when Mr. 
Fulton exhibited his torpedo and described its effects to the Earl 
St. Vincent, he exclaimed, in the strong language of his profession, 
against this mode of warfare, which, he said, with great reason, 
they who commanded the seas did not want, and which, if suc- 
cessful, would wrest the trident from those who claimed to bear it 
as the sceptre of supremacy over the ocean. Fi'om the subse- 
(juent conduct of the British ministry, it may well be supposed that 
Ihey never truly intended to give Mr. Fulton a fair opportunity of 
trying the effects of his engines. The object may have been to 
prevent them from being placed in the hands of an enemy ; and if 
this was accomplished, it was the interest of England, as long as 
she was ambitious of the proud title of mistress of the seas, to 
make the world beheve that Mr. Fulton's projects were chimerical. 
Nothing would be more likely to produce tliis effect than abortive 
attempts to apply them. Several experiments were made, and 



164 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

some of them were failures ; but on the 15th of October, 1805, he 
blew up a strong built Danish brig of 200 tons burden, which had 
been provided for the experiment, and which was anchored in 
Walmar roads, near the residence of Mr. Pitt. The torpedo used 
on this occasion contained 170 pounds of powder ; and in fifteen 
minutes from the time of starting the machinery and throwing the 
torpedo into the water, the explosion took place. It lifted the brig 
almost entire, and broke her completely in two. The ends sunk 
immediately, and in one minute nothing was to be seen of her but 
floating fragments. In fact, her annihilation was complete. 

Notwithstanding the complete success of this experiment, the 
British ministry seem to have been but little disposed to have any 
thing farther to do with Mr. Fulton or his projects. Indeed, the 
evidence it afforded of their efficacy may have been a reason for 
this conduct. After some further experiments, of which we have 
no particular account, he at length embarked for his native coun. 
try, and arrived at New York on the 13th of December, 1806. 

Upon his arrival in this country, he immediately engaged m the 
projects, both of submarine war and steam navigation. For the 
last he had made some preparations before he left England ; but 
we intend to postpone this important subject, to be presented in 
one view, after tracing the progress of his other pursuits. 

So far from being discouraged by his attempts at applying his 
torpedoes in Europe, his confidence was unabated, because he saw, 
as he said, that his failures were to be attributed to trivial errors, 
which actual experience only could discover, and which could be 
easily corrected. He very soon induced our government to afibrd 
him the means of trying further experiments, and invited the magis- 
tracy of New York and a number of citizens to Governor's Island, 
where were the torpedoes and machinery with which his experi- 
ments were to be made ; and while he was explaining his blank 
torpedoes, which were large copper cylinders, his numerous audi- 
tors crowded around him. At length he turned to a copper case 
of the same description, which was placed under the gateway of 
the fort, and to which was attached a clockwork lock This, by 
drawing out a peg, he set in motion, and then said to his audience : 
" Gentlemen, this is a charged torpedo, with which, precisely in 
its present state, I mean to blow up a vessel. It contains 170 
pounds of powder ; and if I were to suffer the clockwork to run 
fifteen minutes, I have no doubt but that it would blow this fortifi- 
catior to atoms." The circle round Mr. Fulton was very soon 
much enlarged, and before five of the fifteen minutes were out, 
there were but two or three persons remaining under the gateway 
The apprehensions of the company amused him, and he took oc 




ROBERT FULTON. 165 

casiion to remark, how true it was that fear frequently arose from 
ignorance. 

On the 20th of July, 1807, he blew up with a torpedo, in the 
harbor of New York, a large hulk brig, which had been prepared 
for the purpose. This experiment only served to prove to the in- 
habitants of New York, by ocular demonstration, that the explo- 
sion of a torpedo under a vessel's bottom would annihilate her. 

i The annexed cut represents one of Mr. 

Fulton's stationary torpedoes, which were 
to be carcasses of powder, having levers 
attached to the triggers of the locks ; num- 
bers of them were to be anchored in the 
channel through which vessels, to make an 
attack, must pass. The hostile vessel, in 

{)assing over a torpedo, would press the 
ever and cause an explosion, a is the 
lever, and b a portion of the rope to which 
the anchor is attached. 

In a letter to the city government of New York, Mr. Fulton 
says : " You have now seen the effect of the explosion of powder 
under the bottom of a vessel, and this, I beheve, is the best and 
most simple mode of using it with the greatest effect in marine 
wars ; for a right application of one torpedo will annihilate a ship, 
nor leave a man to relate the dreadful catastrophe. Thus, should 
a ship of the hne, containing five hundred men, contend with ten 
good row boats, each with a torpedo and ten men, she would risk 
total annihilation, while the boats, under cover of the night and 
with quick movements, would risk only a few men out of the hun- 
dred. When two ships of equal force engage, it may be doubtful 
which will gain the victory ; frequently one hundred men are killed, 
as many wounded, and the ships much injured. But even the 
vanquished vessels will admit of being repaired, and thus the 
number of ships of war will not be diminished ; but will continue 
to increase and tyrannize over the rights of neutrals and peaceable 
nations." 

In March, 1810, five thousand dollars were granted by congress 
for further experiments in submarine explosions, which gave Mr. 
Fulton another opportunity to exercise his skill. A commission 
was a. 30 appointed to be present and report the results. The 
SiOop ji war Argus was prepared for defence against the torpedoes, 
under the orders of Commodore Rogers, after Mr. Fulton had ex- 
plained hjs mode of attack. The defence was so complete, that 
he found it impracticable to do any thing with his torpedoes as 



166 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

they were then prepared. Some experiments were tried, however, 
with his gun-harpoon and cable-cutter ; and after several attempts, 
a fourteen-inch cable was cut off, several feet below the surface of 
the water. The commissioners appointed to make the report did 
not exactly agree in sentiments concerning these experiments. 
The following letter from Mr. Fulton to the secretary of the navy 
accompanied their report : — 

" Kalorama, {District of Columbia,') Fdrruary 1, 1811. 

" Sir, — I have the honor to return to you the report of the 
committee on the torpedo experiments, with that of Commodore 
Rogers ; and the letters of Robert R. Livingston, Morgan Lewis, 
and Cadwallader D. Golden, on the same subject. The opinions 
expressed in these papers are, I think, as favorable to this infant 
art as, under all circumstances, could be expected. It is proved 
and admitted — 

" 1st. That the water-proof locks will ignite gunpowder under 
water. 

" 2d. It is proved that seventy pounds of powder, exploded un- 
der the bottom of a vessel of two hundred tons, will blow her up ; 
hence it is admitted by all the above parties, that if a sufficient 
quantity of powder (and which, I believe, need not be more than 
two hundred pounas,) be ignited under the bottom of a first-rate 
man-of-war, it would instantly destroy her. 

" 3d. It is proved and admitted by all parties concerned in the 
experiments, that a gun can be fired under water, and a cable of 
any size may be cut by that means at any required depth. With 
these immensely important principles proved and admitted, the 
question naturally occurs, whether there be within the genius or 
inventive faculties of man, the means of placing a torpedo under a 
ship, in defiance of her powers of resistance. He who says there 
is not, and that consequently torpedoes never can be rendei'ed use- 
ful, must of course believe that he has penetrated to the limits of 
man''s inventive powers, and that he has contemplated all the com- 
binations and arrangements which present or future ingenuity can 
devise to place a toi'pedo under a ship. There is no man of sound 
sense, who has the least acquaintance with the difficulties under 
which all the arts have labored in their infancy, who on calm re- 
flection will be so weak or vain as to presume that he possesses a 
strength of intellect to foresee all that can be done, not ordy in infant 
arts, but in arts now familiar and long estabhshed. 

" But as it is impossible now to conceive the various modes which 
may be invented for placing torpedoes under a ship, and as the 
success is of incalculable importance to our country, there is every 



ROBERT FULTON. 167 

reason to prosecute the experiments with ardor ; and we are en- 
couraged to this by a contemplation of the progress of the whole 
military art, and particularly the attack and defence of fortified 
places. The celebrated Vauban, after years of experience, aided 
by a powerful genius, to fortify cities, confessed that it was impos- 
sible to make any work so strong by art alone that it could not be 
taken by the art and exertions of a besieging army, in which the 
besiegers commence by parallels and zigzags, to approach the 
rampart of the besieged, and run their mine or subterranean pass- 
age under the works to blow them up. During the whole time of 
their approaches, which is frequently for weeks or months, the be- 
siegers are under as heavy a fire from the besieged, as has or per- 
haps can be invented ; when the explosion makes a breach in the 
rampart it is defended by all the guns loaded with grape and canister 
shot, which can be brought to bear upon it : the trench is enfiladed 
with cannon and small arms. In fact the whole power of the be- 
sieged is directed to defend the breach, perhaps not twenty feet 
wide ; yet in defiance of so concentrated a fire, a fire infinitely 
more destructive than any ship could keep up from her bow, there 
are hundreds of instances of such breaches having been forced and 
the works taken. Is it impossible to contemplate the ingenious com- 
binations, the perseverance, the risk and acts of valor of a besieg- 
ing army, and then believe that there are not ways and means, 
enterprise and courage, when organized and exercised, to mine 
through water, which is the work of a few minutes, and blow up a 
ship, when the risk is not one thousandth part so great as that of 
storming a breach? I think, sir, this comparative view of the 
danger in storming a breach, and attacking a ship, proves, that 
added to three principles before mentioned and admitted, the cour- 
age to undertake the attack of a ship with torpedoes must be ad- 
mitted also. 

" I will now consider the progress of the experiments at New 
York, and the prospect of future improvement which they present : 

" First, as to the harpoon, it is admitted that at the distance of 
'fifteen feet the harpoon stuck firm.'* "Were it improved it 
should not be fired at a greater distance from the ship than thirty 
or forty feet, because the sudden jerk on the Hne might break it off 
at the torpedo : men in a boat at tbirty feet distance from a ship, 
are in as great danger as when in with her bow and under her 
guns ; thus as the harpoon can be fixed at fifteen feet, I wiU not at 
present insist on a greater distance, though I am certain that prac- 
tice will enable me to fix the harpoons at the distance of forty or 

* It entered five inches into oak plank. 

8 



168 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

more ieet if required ; but I do insist that organized men, who have 
courage to storm a breach or to attack a vessel by boarding, have 
courage to approach within fifteen feet of a ship to fire a harpoon, 
or even if necessary to drive a spike into her bow ; when the ship 
discharges her bow guns, her bow must be covered with smoke, 
after which all shot against the boats will be random, particularly 
if the attack be made in the night ; but to protect the men, the 
torpedo boats may be decked with thick oak plank, and rendered 
proof against canister and musket-shot. The risk of the men 
would then be inconsiderable, for while a boat was near in with 
the bow of the ship, her cannon could not be brought to bear so as 
to fire round-shot. It is, therefore, a fair conclusion, that, courage 
added to art, a ship cannot guard herself against a torpedo attack 
by means of her guns and small-arms only. She must, therefore, 
have nets, booms, grapnels, &c. &c. 

" I will now do justice to the talents of Commodore Rodgers, by 
stating that the nets, booms, kentledge and grapnels which he ar- 
ranged round the Argus, made at first sight a formidable appear- 
ance against one torpedo boat and eight bad oarsmen. I was taken 
unawares ; I had explained to the officers of the navy my means 
of attack ; they did not inform me of their measures of defence ; 
the nets were put down to the ground, otherwise I should have 
sent the torpedoes under them. In this situation, the means with 
which I was provided, being imperfect, insignificant, and inade- 
quate to the effect to be produced, I might be compared to what 
Bartholomew Schwartz, the inventor of gunpowder, would have 
appeared, had he lived at the time of Julius CcBsar, and presented 
himself before the gates of Rome with a four-pounder, thereby en- 
deavoring to convince the Roman legions that by the means of 
such machines well organized, he could batter down the walls and 
take the city : a few catapultas casting arrows and stones upon 
his men, would have caused them to retreat ; a shower of rain 
might destroy his ill-guarded powder, and the Roman centurions 
who could not conceive the various modes in which gunpowder has 
since been used to destroy the then art of war, (as my opponents 
cannot now see the combinations by which torpedoes may super- 
sede the necessity of ships of war,) would very naturally conclude 
that it was a useless invention • while the manufacturers of cata- 
pultas, bows, arrows, and shields, woul(J be the most vehement 
against further experiments. 

" This, sir, may be conceived a digression ; but being on an in- 
teresting subject, I have stated this supposed first experiment with 
a four-pounder as a case in point. Some of the first cannon were 
made of leather ; but if such cannon failed, does it therefore fol- 



ROBERT FULTON. 169 

low that gunpowder was useless ? Or does it follow, because I was 
not prepared to put torpedoes through a net the first time it was 
presented to me, that the defect was in the torpedoes ? You, sir, 
will instantly perceive it was not ; but arose from the want of time 
and experience. I had not one man instructed in the use of the 
machines, nor had I time to reflect on this particular mode for 
defending a vessel. I have now, however, had time ; and I feel 
confident that I have discovered a means which will render nets 
to the ground, booms, kentledge, grapnels, oars with sword-blades 
through the port-holes, and all such kinds of operations, totally 
useless. It is as follows : — 

" Should an enemy of any force enter one of our ports and put 
her nets to the ground, let government press from the wharves 
four or more merchantmen, loaded or in ballast, each of them 
from three to four hundred tons burden ; in the magazine there 
should be thirty or forty torpedoes, each containing two hundred 
pounds of powder, and each adjusted to the end of a spar or boom, 
from forty to sixty feet long, tapering from the butt to the point, 
where the torpedo, of a conic form, and having on each side a 
long blade or scythe, should be firmly fixed ; let the butt end of 
the spar be tied so as to act like a swivel under the fore-chains, 
one on the larboard, the other on the starboard side, and the other 
end of the spars with the torpedo be hoisted up to the spritsail- 
yard, and held there until near the scene of action. The expense 
of thus preparing a ship will be 800 or 1,000 dollars, and each 
will be as dangerous to an enemy as a fire-ship. The expense 
of a fire-ship is from 8 to 10,000 dollars, which sum could cer- 
tainly be expended to greater advantage by arranging torpedo- 
ships as here proposed, and for the following reasons : — First, 
8,000 dollars would pay for arranging eight torpedo-ships, which 
could be done in a few hours ; each with two torpedoes projecting 
from the bow, which eight ships moving at one time towards the 
enemy, would divide her fire on eight points, and render it less 
dangerous to each than in the case of one fire-ship, which would 
draw on her the whole fire of the vessel attacked. 

" Second, the expense of a fire-ship is so great, that an attack 
is seldom made with more than one ; whicli must be grappled with 
the enemy, then set on fire and abandoned by her men, who must 
lake to their boat, and expose themselves to the boats and guns of 
the vessel attacked. Should the fire-ship be grappled to the enemy, 
still she may not burn so as to communicate the fire : or if to the 
leeward, she may be cut adrift ; at all events, if in port, the men 
could escape to the shore : therefore, their danger not being great, 
they would work with more confidence and ardor to extinguish 



170 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

i 

the flames and save their ship ; yet the danger with which fire-ships ; 

impress an enemy makes them respect the ports where they are '< 
prepared for action. 

" In the year 1776, Commodore Tolbert grappled a fire-ship to I 

a British two-decker in the river Hudson : he set his ship on fire, I 

and returned to shore under a heavy discharge of musketry and ; 
cannon, without losing a man. He failed to burn the enemy, but 

he drove the vessel attacked, and one of equal force, from seven i 

miles above New York down to Staten Island. t 

" As it does not require so much bravery to make an attack * 
with a torpedo-ship as to grapple a fire-ship to an enemy, the use 

of fire-ships proves that courage is to be found to attack with those ; 

which may be armed with torpedoes. Suppose, then, two torpedo- j 

ships fastened to each other by a chain 80 or 100 feet long, form- ■; 

ing a bridle opposite to the fore-chains, in the manner I arrange j 

my floating torpedoes ; then to be sailed or floated down on the | 

tide, the torpedoes let down twenty-two feet under water, one ship ■ 

steered for the larboard and one for the starboard side of the ene- I 

my ; in this manner the chain would cross her cable, before which • 

she must either slip or cut cable and run, or the momentum of the ■, 

torpedo-ships would sheer round, stern outwards, and press the >. 

torpedoes through the nets under her bottom, where instant explo- ^ 

sion would be instant death : such an operation gives no time for r^ 

an enemy to deliberate or exert themselves to push off", or cut tor j 

pedo vessels adrift, or to calculate on getting to shore in boats, i 

The tremendous consequence of explosion under a ship deprives j 

common men, such as sailors, of all firmness, and the irresistible | 

danger would also influence the major part of officers : hence this •, 

mode of attack is infinitely more to be dreaded than that of fire- ; 

ships ; and for these reasons an enemy will not dare to enter our . 

ports to put it to the test. Should any one doubt the practicability | 

of this mode of passing torpedoes through nets and under a vessel, '' 

the importance of the object merits the experiment. 1 

" Of the anchored torpedoes, I have had the pleasure to show i 

you the improvements I have made on these since the meeting of J 
the committee at New York, to give them stability under water, 

or to take them up or put them dovra when necessary : there is a ; 
very simple mode to convince any unbeliever of the advantage 
which this kind of engine will present, and the respect for our bar- 
bors which it will create in the mind of an enemy : let me put one 
under water, and they who do not believe in its effect may put their 
confidence to the proof by sailing over it. 

" A compound engine of this kind will cost from eight hundred 
to one thousand dollars : three hundred and twenty of them could 



ROBERT FULTON. Itl 

be made for the first cost of one ship of 54 guns ; of which three 
hundred and twenty, say one hundred at New York ; one hundred, 
if required, at Boston ; one hundred at Charleston ; twenty in the 
Delaware, to be placed in the waters between the forts or batteries 
and thus four ports could be guarded so as to render it impossible 
for the enemy's ships to enter either of them, unless they had 
strength first to take possession of the land and forts, and then 
time to deliberately search for the torpedoes ; yet one ship of 54 
guns cannot guard one port against one 74 gun-ship, although her 
first cost in anchored torpedoes would guard at least three ports 
against ten ships of 74 guns. In this estimate it may also be 
stated, that a 54 gun-ship in commission costs the nation one 
hundred thousand dollars a-year ; this, at five per cent., is interest 
to raise a loan of two millions to build the forts or batteries in 
barbet, between which the torpedoes should be placed. While I 
thus compare the expense of torpedoes with that of a ship of 54 
guns, I do not mean to object to such ships to protect our coast ; 
but when considered for harbor defence, or aiding forts or batteries 
to defend harbors, the money can be better expended in torpedoes. 
" In the report of the committee it is also admitted that I cut a 
fourteen-inch cable at the depth of six feet under water, (it was, in 
fact, twelve feet under the water.) In this experiment, it is true, 
I was five or six minutes within pistol-shot of the vessel : the rea- 
son is, it was only the fourth time a cable-cutting machine was 
ever tried ; with so little experience, I did not attempt to cut at a 
greater distance : the object at the time being to prove that a 
cable could be hooked and cut without injuring the machine. New 
invented instruments must be unskilfully used for a time ; but with 
the practice of only one month and one good boat's crew, I will 
undertake to cut the cable of a ship at any given depth under 
water, without approaching nearer to her than eight hundred yards. 
I will also undertake to place myself at the distance of eight hun- 
dred yards from a ship having an unguarded cable, and at that 
distance I will put an improved cable-cutting machine in the water : 
I will there abandon it, and it shall go to the cable, cut it off and 
set the ship adrift, without any further aid on my part than placing 
it in the water. Such is the unforeseen and incalculable results 
of mechanical combinations.* It may be said, if one cable be cut 
and anchor lost, the enemy could put out a second, third, fourth, 
or fifth anchor and cable ; but as a provident government would 
not undertake to defend a port with one cannon, so there should 
be in the magazine fifteen or twenty machines for cutting cables, 

* This discovery has been produced by my other experimontfc 



173 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

and there should be a marine militia practised in the use of them 
In such case an enemy could not afford to exchange an anchor 
and cable, worth five thousand dollars, against three ounces of 
gunpowder, and at the same time run the risk of being driven on 
shore in a calm or by a lee-tide ; hence, in our calculations ou 
harbor defence, this instrument alone will always be an embar 
rassing consideration for an enemy. 

" It must be admitted that the whole of the experiments ^at New 
York were badly executed ; but they could not be otherwise. I 
had not a man practised, nor am I experienced in the use of my 
own machines. I consequently was necessitated to explain my 
theory by such imperfect means as I had in my power ; yet, under 
all these disadvantages, I have, to my satisfaction, gained much 
useful experience, and evidently convinced some of the committee 
of the great importance of persevering, and particularly with a 
view to harbor defence. By the experiments I have discovered 
much of the strength and resources of my opponents ; and I am 
satisfied I can defeat every obstruction which has hitherto been 
presented : this I hope to prove after some practice. But having 
witnessed the activity and resources of mind which Commodore 
Rodgers and Captain Chauncey possess, I look forward to contend 
with new and difficult combinations which they may produce for 
defence : in this manner it is probable we shall discover the prin- 
cipal means of defence against torpedoes, and modes of attack 
with them, until, like the attack and defence of fortified places, the 
measures to be pursued on each side, in all cases, will become fa- 
miliar, and a fair calculation may be made on the mode of attack- 
ing a ship. 

" But, sir, to do this, it is indispensable that I should have 
twenty or thirty men under my command, to be practised to the 
use of my engines in my own way. Well as gunnery is under- 
stood, no one can hope that young recruits should fire a cannon 
with skill and effect until they have some months practice. It is 
therefore, demanding of me to perform a miracle, to apply torpe 
does to advantage, break through nets, harpoon ships, and cu'i 
cables, with an outfit of one thousand dollars, and not one man 
practised to assist me. Compare my situation with that of my 
opponents ; men of talents and sound nautical knowledge, working 
on their own element, the commodoi'e commanding more than four 
hundred men in a ship of fifty-four guns, which ship, with all her 
various apparatus as fitted for efficient service, is an engine pro- 
duced by the combined talents of some thousands of ingenious 
men, who have directed their attention to the improvement of ves- 
sels of war since the invention of gunpowder : thus the commodore, 



ROBERT FULTON. 173 

added to his own talents, has the advantage of the experience and 
talents of all nautical men who have lived before him ; yet he 
would not be so imprudent as to face an enemy of equal force, if 
his men were raw recruits unpractised to the guns or working of 
the ship ; and it is to familiarize his men to their duty in each de- 
partment that he is in a state of constant practice. A succession 
of experiments on his men, which costs the nation one hundred 
thousand dollars a year, which experiments, when followed from 
one to ten or twenty years, at the expense of from one hundred 
thousand to two millions of dollars, is to enable him to do no more 
than fight one ship of equal force, in which contest the chances 
would be equal that he would not take or destroy the enemy : with 
all this expensive experiment for years of peace to be prepared in 
case of war, it is not expected that he should contend with a ship 
of seventy-four guns. But if experiments, which are inconsider- 
able in their expense compared to that of a fifty-four gun-ship, 
should prove that attacks with torpedoes can be rendered practi- 
cable and efficient, (and every reflection teaches me that they can,) 
it will be immaterial whether the enemy's vessel be a forty or an 
eighty gun-ship ; two hundred pounds of powder exploded under 
the bottom of either will produce certain destruction. 

" Thus, sir, considering this subject in these various points of 
view, its infancy, its prospect of success, and, if successful, its 
immense importance to these states, and to mankind, the small 
establishment, and inconsiderable sum required to practise and 
prove its utility, compared with the expense of other nautical 
establishments which promise only common and imperfect results, 
I conceive it highly merits a patient and candid succession of ex- 
periments ; for which purpose I feel the necessity of taking time, 
that I may have the ensuing summer to practise a few men on 
nets, and such other obstructions as may be presented ; which I 
hope, sir, will meet with your approbation and that of every friend 
to science. 

" I imite with the committee in opinion that government should 
not rely on this, or any new invention for defence, until its utility 
be fully proved. It never has been my wish that such confidence 
should be placed in torpedoes, until fair experiment had proved 
their value beyond a doubt. 

" I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect, 
" Your most obedient, 

" Robert Ftjlton." 

It is to be feared, that the hints which Fulton has felt for the 
'mprovement of his submarine warfare, which he thought so much 



174 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

of, will be neglected ; partly for want of support, and that rare com. 
bination of courage, industry, and perseverance which he possessed. 
We must now, however, revert to an early period of his life, to 
trace from the beginning the progress of that great improvement 
in the arts, for which we, and all the world, are so much indebted 
to him : we mean the practical establishment of navigation by 
steam. At what time his attention was first directed to this sub- 
ject, we do not know ; but it is ascertained that, in the year 1793, 
he had matured a plan, in which, even at that early day, he had 
great confidence. 

It is impossible to say how far Mr. Fulton had turned his atten- 
tion to this subject, and what expeximents, or what degree of pro- 
gress he had made in his plans for steamboat navigation, previously 
to the year 1801, when he and Chancellor Livingston met at Paris. 
Among his papers are a variety of drawings, diagrams, and calcu- 
lations, which evidently relate to the subject, but they are imper- 
fect ; most of them are mutilated by the accident before mentioned, 
and without dates, so that they cannot with certainty be assigned 
to any particular period. They render it very evident, however, 
that paddle-wheels, as they are now used in the boats which he 
built, were among his first conceptions of the means by which 
steam-vessels might be propelled. 

Our limits will not permit us to examine minutely, the preten- 
sions of those who claim to have preceded Mr. Fulton in the appli- 
cation of steam to navigation. That it was not successfully ac- 
comphshed by any one prior to the execution of his plan, seems to 
be proved by the acknowledged fact, that though in several instan- 
ces boats had been made to move by the force of steam, yet not 
one, either in Europe or America, had ever answered any other 
purpose than to prove an unsuccessful experiment. 

Mr. Fulton, when he conceived a mechanical invention, not only 
perceived the effect it would produce, but he could ascertain, by 
calculation, the power his combination would afford, how far it 
would be adequate to his purpose, and what would be the requisite 
strength of every part of the machine : and though his numerical 
calculations did not always prove exact, and required to be correct. 
ed by experiments, yet they assured him of general results. Yet 
he never attempted to put in practice any improvements in me- 
chanics, without having made his calculations, drawn his plans, 
and executed his models. A view of the progress of his improve- 
ments, as they are to be traced from the calculations, drawings, 
and notes on experiments which he has left, would afford the most 
useful lessons ; and a work which would give them to the world 
in a proper manner, would be invaluable. 



ROBERT FULTON. 175 

It would be great injustice not to notice with due respect and 
commendation the enterprises of the late Chancellor Livingston, 
who had so intimate a connection with Fulton in the progress 
and establishment of steam navigation. While Mr. Livingston 
devoted much of his own time and talents to the advancement of 
science, and the promotion of the public good, he was fond of 
fostering the discoveries of others. The resources of his ample 
fortune were afforded with great liberality, whenever he could 
apply them to the support and encouragement of genius. He 
entertained very clear conceptions of what would be the great 
advantages of steamboats, on the large and extensive rivers of 
the United States. He had applied himself with uncommon 
perseverance, and at great expense, to constructing vessels and ma- 
chinery for that kind of navigation. As early as 1798, he be- 
lieved that he had accomplished his object, and represented to the 
legislature of New York, that he was possessed of a mode of 
applying the steam engine to propel a boat on new and advan- 
tageous principles ; but that he was deterred from carrying it into 
effect, by the uncertainty and hazard of a very expensive experi- 
ment, unless he could be assured of an exclusive advantage from 
It, should it be found successful. 

The legislature, in March, 1798, passed an act, vesting Mr. 
Livingston with the exclusive right and privilege of navigating all 
kinds of boats, which might be propelled by the force of fire or 
steam, on all the waters within the territory or jurisdiction of the 
state of New York, for the term of twenty years from the pass- 
ing of the act ; upon condition that he should, within a twelve- 
month, build such a boat, the mean of whose progress should not 
be less than four miles an hour. 

Mr. Livingston, immediately after the passing of this act, built 
a boat of about thirty tons burden, which was propelled by steam ; 
but as she was incompetent to fulfil the condition of the law, she 
was abandoned. 

Soon after he entered into a contract with Fulton, by which it 
was, among other things, agreed, that a patent should be taken 
out in the United States in Mr. Fulton's name, which Mr. Liv- 
ingston well knew could not be done without Mr. Fulton's taking 
an oath that the improvement was solely his. 

We have seen that Mr. Fulton's mind, previous to his return 
to this country, had long been directed to the project of propelling 
boats by steam. 

Upon Chancellor Livingston's arrival in France, Fulton was 
induced to revive his thoughts of this invention, by his represen- 



176 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

tations of the advantages which would be derived from naviga 
tion by steam in this country, by his account of the approaches 
to success which he had made in his experiments, and by the 
pecuniary support which the chancellor's wealth enabled him to 
offer. Mr. Fulton began a course of calculations upon the re- 
sistance of water, the necessary force to move a body through it, 
upon the most advantageous form of the body to be moved, and 
upon the different means of propelling vessels which had been 
previously attempted ; and after a variety of calculations, he re- 
jected the plan proposed of using paddles or oars, likewise that 
of duck's feet, which open as they are pushed out, and shut as 
they are drawn in, and also, that of forcing water out at the stern 
of the vessel ; retaining two methods only, as worthy of experi- 
ment, namely, endless chains with resisting boards upon them, 
and the paddle-wheel. The latter was found to be the most 
promising, and finally adopted, after a number of trials with his 
models, on a little rivulet which 'runs through the village of 
Plombieres, to which place he had i-etired to pursue his experi- 
ments without interruption. This was in the spring of 1802. 

It was now determined to build an experimental boat, which 
was completed in the spring of 1803 ; but when Mr. Fulton was 
on the point of making an experiment with her, an accident 
happened to the boat, the wood-work not having been framed 
strong ^enough to bear the weight of the machinery, and the agita- 
tion of the river. The accident did the machinery very little 
injury | but they were obliged to build the boat almost entirely 
anew. She was completed in July ; her length was sixty-six 
feet, and she was eight feet wide. Early in August, Mr. Fulton 
addressed a letter to the French National Institute, inviting them 
to witness a trial of his boat, which was made in their presence, 
and in the presence of a great multitude of the Parisians. The 
experiment was entirely satisfactory to Mr. Fulton, though the 
boat did not move altogether with as much speed as he expected. 
But he imputed her moving so slowly to the extremely defective 
fabrication of the machinery, and to imperfections which were to 
be expected in the first experiment with so complicated a machine, 
but which he saw might be easily remedied. 

Such entire confidence did he acquire from this experiment, 
that immediately afterwards he wrote to Messrs. Watt and Bolton, 
of Birmingham, England, ordering certain parts of a steam 
engine to be made for him, and sent to America. He did not 
disclose to them for what purpose the engine was intended ; but 
his directions were such as would produce the parts of an engine. 



ROBERT FULTON, I77 

thai might be put together within a compass suited for a boat. 
Mr. Livingston had written to his friends in this country, and 
through their interference, an act was passed by the legislature 
of the state of New York, on the 5th of April, 1803, by which 
the rights and exclusive privileges of navigating all the waters 
of that state, by vessels propelled by fire or steam, granted to 
Mr. Livingston by the act of 1798, which we have before men- 
tioned, were extended to Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton, for the 
term of twenty years from the date of the new act. By this law, 
the time of producing proof of the practicability of propelling 
by steam a boat of twenty tons capacity, at the rate of four 
miles an hour, with and against the ordinary current of the Hud- 
son, was extended two years, and by a subsequent law, the time 
was enlarged to 1807. 

Very soon after Mr. Fulton's arrival in New York, he commen- 
ced building his first American boat. While she was constructing, 
he found that her expenses would greatly exceed his calculations. 
He endeavored to lessen the pressure on his own finances, by offer- 
ing one third of the right, for a proportionate contribution to the 
expense. It was generally known that he made this offer, but no 
one was then wilhjig to afford this aid to his enterprise, although 
so many, since its success, have been eagerly grasping at its profits,. 

In the spring of 1807, Fulton's first American boat was launch- 
ed from the ship-yard of Charles Brown, on the East river. The 
engine from England was put on board of her, and in August she 
was completed, and was moved by her machinery from her birth- 
place to the Jersey shore. Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton had 
invited many of their friends to witness the first trial, among whom 
were those learned men. Dr. Mitchill and Dr. M'Neven, to whom 
we are indebted for some account of what passed on this occasion. 
Nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of all who wit- 
nessed the experiment. The minds of the most incredulous were 
changed in a few minutes. Before the boat had made the progress 
of a quarter of a mile, the greatest unbeliever must have been 
converted. The man who, while he looked on the expensive ma- 
chine, thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to waste 
his money on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his 
features as the boat moved from the wharf and gained her speed, 
and his complacent expression gradually stiffened into one of won- 
der. The jeers of the ignorant, who had neither sense nor feeling 
enough to suppress their contemptuous ridicule and rude jokes, 
were silenced for a moment by a vulgar astonishment, which depriv- 
ed them of the power of utterance, till the triumph of genius extorted 



178 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

from the incredulous multitude which crowded the shores, shouts 
and acclamations of congratulation and applause. 

The boat had not been long under way, when Fulton ordered 
her engine to be stopped. Though her performance so far exceed- 
ed the expectations of every other person, and no one but himself 
thought she could be improved, he immediately perceived that there 
was an error in the construction of her water-wheels. He had 
their diameters lessened, so that the buckets took less hold of the 
water, and when they were again put in motion, it was manifest 
that the alteration had increased the speed of the boat. It may 
well be said, that the man of genius and knowledge has a sense 
beyond those which are common to others, or that he sees with 
different eyes. How many would have gazed on these ill-propor 
tioned wheels, without perceiving that they were imperfect ! 

This boat, which was called the Clermont, soon after made a 
trip to Albany. Mr. Fulton gives the following account of this 
voyage in a letter to his friend, Mr. Barlow. " My steamboat voy- 
age to Albany and back, has turned out rather more favorable than 
1 had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one 
hundred and fifty miles ; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down 
in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both 
going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by 
the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and 
schooners beating to windward, and parted with them as if they 
had been at anchor. The power of propelhng boats by steam is 
now fully proved. The morning I left New York, there were not 
perhaps thirty persons in the city, who believed that the boat would 
ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility ; and while 
we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spec- 
tators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way 
in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers 
and projectors. Having employed much time, money, and zeal, in 
accomplishing this work, it gives mc, as it will you, great pleasure 
to see it fully answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and 
quick conveyance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri, 
and other great rivers, which are now la5dng open their treasures 
to the enterprise of our countrymen ; and although the prospect of 
pei'sonal emolument has been some inducement to me, yet I feel 
infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantage 
that my country wiU. derive from the invention," &c. 

Soon after this successful voyage, the Hudson boat was adver- 
tised and established as a regular passage-boat between New York 
and Albany. She, however, in the course of the season, met with 
several accidents, from the hostility of those engaged in the ordi- 




"IK ^ 



ROBERT FULTON. 181 

nary navigation of the river, and from defects in her machinery ; 
the greatest of which was, having her water-wheel shafts of cast 
iron, which was insufficient to sustain the great power apphed to 
them. The wheels also were hung without any support for the 
outward end of the shaft, which is now supplied by what are called 
the wheel-guards. 

At the session of 1808, a law was passed to prolong the time 
of the exclusive right to thirty years ; it also declared combinations 
to destroy the boat, or wilful attempts to injure her, public offences, 
punishable by fine and imprisonment. 

Notwithstanding her misfortunes, the boat continued to run as 
a packet, always loaded with passengers, for the remainder of the 
summer. In the course of the ensuing winter she was enlarged, 
and in the spring of 1808, she again commenced running as a 
packet-boat, and continued it through the season. Several other 
boats were soon built for the Hudson river, and also for steamboat 
companies formed in different parts of the United States. 

On the 11th of Februaiy, 1809, Mr. Fulton took out a patent 
for his inventions in navigation by steam, and on the 9th of Feb- 
ruary, 1811, he obtained a second patent for some improvements 
in his boats and machinery. 

It having been found that the laws, granting to Livingston and 
Fulton exclusive privileges, were insufficient to secure their enjoy- 
ment, the legislature of New York, in 1811, passed a supplement- 
ary act, giving certain summary remedies against those who should 
contravene the protecting laws. The act, however, excepts two 
boats which were then navigating the Hudson, and one which ran 
on Lake Champlain in opposition to Livingston and Fulton : with- 
out these exceptions, the law, as to these boats, would have been 
ex post facto. In respect to these, therefore, the parties were left 
to the same remedies as before passing the last act. The opposi- 
tion boats on the Hudson, were at first to have been propelled by 
a pendulum, which some thought would give a greater power than 
steam ; but on launching their vessel, they found the machinery 
was not so easily moved as when she was on the stocks. Having 
found by experiment that a pendulum would not supply the place 
of steam, and knowing no other way of applying steam than that 
they saw practised in the Fulton boats, they adopted all their ma- 
chinery, with some small alterations, with no other view than to 
give a pretence for claiming to be the inventors of improvements 
on steamboats. 

Messrs. Livingston and Fulton attempted to vindicate their rights, 
and to stop these boats, by an application to the Circuit Court of 
the United States for an injunction ; but the judge decided that he 



182 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

had not jurisdiction of the case. They then made appUcation to 
the Court of Chancery of the state, but the Chancellor, after hear- 
ing an argument for several days, refused to grant an injunction. 
An appeal to the Court of Errors, composed of the Senate of the 
state, and the five judges of the Supreme Court, unanimously re- 
versed the decision of the Chancellor, and ordered a perpetual 
injunction ; so that the boats could no more be moved with stearn, 
than they could by a pendulum. The merits of the members of 
this Pendulum Company were contrasted with those of Fulton, by 
Mr. Emmet, the counsel for the appellants. He described them 
as " men who never wasted health and life in midnight vigils, and 
painful study, who never dreamt of science in the broken slumbers 
of an exhausted mind, and who bestowed on the construction of a 
steamboat just as much mathematical calculation and philosphical 
research, as in the purchase of a sack of wheat, or a barrel of 
ashes." 

About the year 1812, two steam ferry-boats were built under 
the directions of Mr. Fulton for crossing the Hudson river, and 
one of the same description for the East river. These boats were 
what are called twin-boats ; each of them being two complete hulls 
united by a deck or bridge. They were sharp at both ends, and 
moved equally well with either end foremost ; so that they crossed 
and re-crossed without losing any time by turning about. He con- 
trived, with great ingenuity, floating docks for the reception of these 
boats, and a means by which they are brought to them without a 
shock. 

From the time the first boat was put in motion till the death 
of Mr. Fulton, the art of navigating by steam was fast advancing 
to that perfection of which he believed it capable : for some time 
the boat performed each successive trip with increased speed, and 
every year improvements were made. The last boat built by him 
was invariably the best, the most convenient, and the swiftest. 

The following anecdote shows the quickness of apprehension, 
as well as the practical knowledge of Mr. Fulton. It will be re- 
membered by some of our readers, how long, and how successfully, 
Redheffer had deluded the Pennsylvanians by his perpetual motion. 
One of these machines was put into operation in New York in 
1813. Mr. Fulton was a perfect unbeliever in RedhefFer's dis- 
covery, and although hundreds were daily paying their dollar to 
see the wonder, he could not be prevailed upon to follow the crowd. 
After a few days, however, he was induced by some of his friends 
to visit the machine. It was in an isolated house in the suburbs 
of the city. In a very short time after Mr. Fulton had entered 
the room in which it was exhibited, he exclaimed, " Why, this is a 



ROBERT FULTON. 183 

ciank motion." His ear enabled him to distinguish that the ma- 
chine was moved by a cranli, wliich always gives an unequal power, 
and therefore an unequal velocity in the course of each revolution ; 
and a nice and practical ear may perceive that the sound is not 
uniform. If the machine had been kept in motion by what was 
its ostensible moving power, it must have had an equable rotary 
motion, and the sound would have been always the same. 

After some little conversation with the show-man, Mr. Fulton 
did not hesitate to declare that the machine was an imposition, 
and to tell the gentleman that he was an impostor. Notwithstand- 
ing the anger and bluster which these charges excited, he assui'ed 
the company that the thing was a cheat, and that if they would 
support him in the attempt, he would detect it at the risk of pay- 
ing any penalty if he failed. Having obtained the assent of all 
who were present, he began by knocking away some very thin 
pieces of lath, which appeared to be no part of the machinery, but 
to go from the frame of the machine to the wall of the room, 
merely to keep the corner posts of the machine steady. It was 
found that a catgut string was led through one of these laths and 
the frame of the machine, to the head of the upright shaft of a 
principal wheel ; that the catgut was conducted through the wall, 
and along the floors of the second story to a back cock-loft, at a 
distance of a number of yards from the room which contained the 
machine, and there was found the moving power. This was a 
poor old wretch with an immense beard, and all the appearance 
of having suffered a long imprisonment ; who, when they broke 
in upon him, was unconscious of what had happened below, and 
who, while he was seated on a stool, gnawing a crust, was with 
one hand turning a crank. The proprietor of the perpetual mo- 
tion soon disappeared. The mob demolished his machine, the 
destruction of which immediately put a stop to that which had 
been, for so long a time, and to so much profit, exhibited in Phila- 
delphia. The merits of this exposure will appear more striking, 
when we consider that many men of ingenuity, learning, and sci- 
ence, had seen the machine : some had written on the subject ; 
not a few of these were his zealous advocates, and others, though 
they were afraid to admit that he had made a discovery which 
violated what were believed to be the established laws of nature, 
appeared also afraid to deny what the incessant motion of his 
wheels and weights seemed to prove. 

Mr. Fulton had enlarged views of the advantages of internal 
improvements, both as regards commerce, and the stabihty of the 
union, by a free intercourse between the states. As early as 1807, 
he pointed out the practicability of opening a communication 



184 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

between the great lakes and the Hudson, and in 1811, he was 
appointed a commissioner to explore the route of an inland navi- 
gation, from Hudson river to Lake Erie. His calculations of the 
advantages of the project are very interesting, and may be found 
appended to Golden ''s Life of Fulton. 

At the commencement of the year 1814, a number of the 
citizens of New York, alarmed at the exposed situation of their 
harbor, had assembled with a view to consider whether some 
measures might not be taken to aid the government in its protec- 
tion. This assembly had, in fact, been invited by some knowledge 
of Mr. Fulton's plans for submarine attack, and of his contempla- 
ting other means of defence. They deputed a number of gentle- 
men to act for them, and these were called the coast and harbor 
committee. Mr. Fulton exhibited to tliis committee the model and 
plans for a vessel of war, to be propelled by steam, capable of 
carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and which, 
he represented, would move at the rate of four miles an hour. 
The confidence of the committee in this design was confirmed by 
the opinions of many of our most distinguished naval command- 
ers, which he had obtained in writing, and exhibited to the com- 
mittee. They pointed out many advantages which a steam- vessel 
of war would possess over those with sails only. 

The national legislature passed a law in March, 1814, author- 
izing the president of the United States to cause to be built, equip- 
ped, and employed, one or more floating batteries for the defence 
of the waters of the United States. A sub-committee of five gen- 
tlemen was appointed to superintend the building of the proposed 
vessel, and Mr. Fulton, whose soul indeed animated the whole 
enterprise, was appointed the engineer. In June, 1814, the keei 
of this novel and mighty engine was laid, and in October, she wag 
launched from the yard of Adam and Noah Brown, her able and 
active architects. The scene exhibited on this occasion was mag- 
nificent. It happened on one of our bright autumnal days. Mul- 
titudes of spectators crowded the surrounding shores, and were 
seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect. The 
river and bay were filled with vessels of war, dressed in all their 
variety of colors, in compliment to the occasion. By May, 1815, 
her engine was put on board, and she was so far completed as to 
afford an opportunity of trying her machinery. But, unhappily, 
before this period, the mind that had conceived and combined it was 
gone. On the fourth of July, in the same year, the steam-frigate 
made a passage to the ocean and back, a distance of fifty-three 
miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes, by the mere force of 
steam. In September, she made another passage to the sea, and 



ROBERT FULTON. 185 

having at this time the weight of her whole armament on board, 
she went at the rate of five and a half mUes an hour, upon an 
average, with and against the tide. The superintending commit- 
tee gave, in their report, a fuU description of the Fulton the First, 
the honored name this vessel bore. 

We now come to mention the last work in which the active and 
ingenious mind of Mr. Fulton was engaged. This was a project 
for the modification of his submarine boat. He presented a model 
of this vessel to the government, by which it was approved ; and 
under the authority of the executive, he commenced building one ; 
but before the hull was entirely finished, his countiy had to lament 
his death, and the mechanics he had employed were incapable of 
proceeding without him. 

During the whole time that Mr. Fulton had thus been devoting 
his talents to the service of his country, he had been harassed by 
lawsuits, and controversies with those who were violating "hiis pat- 
ent rights, or intruding upon his exclusive grants. The state of 
New Jersey had passed a law which operated against Mr. Fulton, 
without being of much advantage to those interested in its passage ; 
inasmuch as the laws of New York prevented any but Fulton's 
boats to approach the city of New York. Its only operation was 
to stop a boat owned in New York, which had been several years 
running to New Brunswick, under a license from Messrs. Living, 
ston and Fulton. A bold attempt was therefore made to induce the 
legislature of the state of New York, to repeal the laws which 
they had passed for the protection of their exclusive grant to Liv- 
ingston and Fuiton. The committee reported a law which they 
said might be passed consistently with good faith, honor, and jus- 
tice ! This report being made to the house, it was prevailed upon 
to be less precipitate than the committee had been. It gave time, 
which the committee would not do, for Mr. Fulton to be sent for 
from New York. The senate and assembly in joint session exam- 
ined witnesses, and heard him and the petitioner, by counsel. The 
result was, that the legislature refused to repeal the prior law, or 
to pass any act on the subject. The legislature of the state of 
New Jersey, also, repealed their law, which left Mr. Fulton in the 
full enjoyment of his rights. But alas ! this enjoyment was of very 
short duration ; for on returning from Trenton, after this last trial, 
he was exposed on the Hudson, which was very full of ice, for 
several hours. He had not a constitution to encounter such expo- 
sure, and upon his return, found himself much indisposed from the 
efiects of it. He had at that time great anxiety about the steam- 
frigate, and, after confining himself for a few days, he went to give 
his superintendence to the artificers employed about her. Forget- 



186 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

ting his debilitated state of health in the interest he took in what 
was doing on the frigate, he remained too long exposed, in a bad 
day, to the weather on her decks. He soon felt the effects of this 
imprudence. His indisposition returned upon him with such 
violence as to confine him to his bed. His disorder increased, 
and on the 24th day of February, 1815, terminated his valuable 
life. 

It was not known that Mr. Fulton"'s illness was dangerous, till 
a very short time before his death, which was unexpected by his 
friends, and still more so by the community. As soon as it was 
known, all means were taken to testify, publicly, the universal re- 
gret at his loss, and respect for his memory. The newspapers 
that announced the event, had those marks of mourning, which 
are usual in our country when they notice the death of public char- 
acters. The corporation of the city of New York, the different 
literary institutions and other societies, assembled and passed res- 
olutions expressing their estimation of his worth, and regret at his 
loss. They also determined to attend his funeral, and that the mem- 
bers should wear badges of mourning for a certain time. As soon 
as the legislature, which was then in session at Albany, heard of 
the death of Mr. Fulton, they expressed their participation in the 
general sentiment, by resolving that the members of both houses 
should wear mourning for some weeks. 

This is the only instance, we believe, of such public testimonial?, 
of regret, esteem, and respect being offered on the death of a pri- 
vate citizen, who never held any office, and was only distinguished 
by his virtues, his genius, and the employment of his talents. 

In the year 1806, Mr. Fulton married Miss Harriet Livingston, 
a daughter of Walter Livingston, Esq., a relative of his enterpris- 
ing associate, Chancellor Livingston. He left four children ; one 
son, Robert Barlow Fulton, and three daughters. 

In conclusion, it may be proper to make a few remarks in rela- 
tion to the labors of Mr. Fulton. He was not the original inventor 
of steamboats, because many had made them before him ; neither 
was he the perfector, because the thing is not yet perfect. What 
was he then ? Why, he was the first to gain the prize ; he it was 
who satisfied the law ; and since his boat went from New York to 
Albany, there has always been a regular succession of steamboats ; 
so that he was the first to bring them into public use, and by his 
genius and perseverance, he so improved them as to lay a solid 
foundation for those who came after him to build upon. Professor 
Renwick has given a concise history of the invention of the steam- 
boat, in his Treatise on Steam Engines ; and has taken the right 
view of the subject, in our opinion, in relation to Mr. Fulton. Al 



ROBERT FULTON. 187 

though there may be those in our own country, as well as in Eng. 
land and France, who are unwilling to give Mr. Fulton his full share 
of praise, on account of themselves or their relations having been 
interested in this invention, yet there are others in all these coun- 
tries who are willing to do him justice. The following is an extract 
from a memoir published in Paris some years ago ; it is from the 
pen of Mr. Frederick Royou. " I willingly applaud the patriotic 
sentiment by which M. de Jouffroy desired that the honor of so 
great an invention should be attributed to a Frenchman. Unhap- 
pily, however, it is here a question, much less of an invention, than 
of the application of a power already known. Besides, Fulton 
has never claimed the merit of being the inventor in this sense. 
The application which he made, may be considered as ordinary 
and common in its nature, because it was pointed out by so many 
scientific men ; but the means of application were necessaiy, and 
Fulton has procured them." We extract the following from the 
English Penny Magazine, which, it is said, has a milhon of read- 
ers. " Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat in North America, 
which, in a few years, has produced such an astonishing change in 
that vast country, by connecting together its most distant states, 
sustained the mortification of not being comprehended by his coun- 
trymen. He was, therefore, treated as an idle projector, whose 
schemes would be useless to the world and ruinous to himself." 
And again, we find in the same work the following : " We cannot 
enter into a controversy whether Fulton, or Mr. WiUiam Syming- 
ton, was the inventor of the steamboat. What has been said of 
Arkwright may apply to Fulton : — ' The several inventions which 
his patent embraced, whether they were his or not, would, proba- 
bly, but for him, have perished with their authors ; none of whom, 
except himself, had the determination and courage to face the mul- 
tiplied fatigues and dangers that lay in the way of achieving b. prac- 
tical exemplification of what they had conceived in their minds.'' " 

Fulton may be compared with Watt. Both were persevering, 
and had great inventive powers ; and both were fortunate alike in 
obtaining the confidence and support of patrons, who were gener- 
ous, and who possessed ample fortunes. In this relation stood 
Mr Bolton, and Chancellor Livingston. 



JACOB PERKINS. 



Birth. — Is apprenticed to a goldsmitli. — Death of his employer. — Invents a supe 
rior method of plating shoe-buckles. — Prosecutes the manufacture of gold 
beads and shoe-buckles. — Early reputation. — Makes dies for the Massachu 
setts mint. — Invents the nail-machine. — Through the mismanagement of 
others, is reduced to poverty. — Harsh treatment by his creditors. — Inventions 
for the prevention of counterfeiting. — Opinion of public prosecutors concerning 
them. — Removes to Philadelphia. — Goes out to England. — Proves the com 
pressibility of fluids. — Pleometer. — Bathometer. — Improvements in hardening 
and softening steel. — Its appUcation to the printing of calicoes and transferring 
of engravings. — Indenting cylinders. — Watt's steam artillery. — Jonathan Horn- 
blower's steam rocket. — M. Gerard's plan for the defence of Paris. — Perkins' 
experiments with his steam-gun. — Conclusion. 

This individual,* who has acquired, probably, more transatlantic 
fame than any American mechanician now living, is a lineal de- 
scendant of the Puritans, and was born in Newburyport, Mass., 
July, 1766. Early showing a fondness for mechanics, his parents 
placed him, when thirteen years of age, as an apprentice to a 
goldsmith. 

Three years after, he lost his master : this, however, did not 
prevent him from continuing in the business. Gold beads and 
shoe-buckles were then in fashion; and having invented a new 
and superior method of plating the latter, he prosecuted the manu- 
facture of these articles with considerable profit. 

Perkins early acquired a reputation for ingenuity; for, before 
the adoption of the federal constitution, Massachusetts had a mint 
for copper coin, and, when he was only about twenty-one, the 
agent of this establishment hearing of his skill, sent for Mm to 
make dies. His success, happily, proved that the confidence was' 
not misplaced. Not long after was invented his famous nail- 
machine, which cut and headed nails at one operation. This in- 
vention was considered very useful, and promised great profits : 
unfortunately, he was associated with those who had no property, 
and, by their mismanagement, he not only lost the fruits of several 
years' hard labor, but all he was worth ; and, in addition to these 
troubles, he was treated by his creditors with unwarrantable 
harshness. 

* American Magazine, Lardner's Cyclopaedia, &c. &c. 




JACOB PERKINS. 



TACOB PERKINS. 191 

His next invention appears to have been the preparation of a 
device for pi'eventing the counterfeiting of bank bills, which had, 
at that time, become a very serious and extensive evil, — one, too, 
M'hich the guardians of the public weal almost despaired of remedy, 
ing. He first made a stamp on the bills, which was of some bene- 
fit, for it was seldom imitated. In 1809, the check plate was pre- 
pared, which proved the best security then known ; and a law was 
passed in Massachusetts, requiring all the banks to use it. Some 
years after it was repealed, or was disregarded by the banks, much 
to the regret of many. Public prosecutors have declared that they 
never knew a good counterfeit of it. 

Perkins resided several years at Philadelphia, when at that time 
(some thirty years ago) this city was much in advance in the arts 
of any other place in our country. Some ten or twelve years 
after, he removed to England. This was, probably, from the hope 
of finding more able patrons, or a greater opportunity for im- 
provement in his favorite pursuits. It was said at his departure, 
that he expected to be employed by the English government in 
preparing plates to prevent the counterfeiting of bills of the Bank 
of England. 

It had ever been maintained by philosophers generally, that 
water was incapable of compression. Perkins was among the 
first to doubt the truth of this opinion, and, by his ingenious ex- 
neriment, has proved beyond a question the falsity of popular 
opinion. On this principle is his invention of the bathometer, 
to measure the depth of water : and his pleometer, to mark with 
■precision the rate at which a vessel moves through the water, was 
invented about the same time. At the announcement of his in- 
vention to heat water under an enormous pressure, the public were 
led, from statements neither sanctioned nor promulgated by the 
inventor, to indulge in the most extravagant speculations on the 
power and economy to be derived from this discovery. The dis- 
appointment of these absurd expectations was magnified into a 
reproach agamst the experimenter, although, in fact, Perkins per- 
formed all he promised : and his scheme was only incomplete, 
from a practical difficulty in getting a suitable material for his 
generator, sufficiently powerful to withstand the enormous heat 
and pressure, — an obstacle neither insuperable nor unforeseen. 

Among his early inventions, were the improvements in harden- 
ing and softening steel at pleasure. This has been highly useful 
in its results, and has become very well known in connection with 
roller-press printing from hardened steel plates, now universally 
used in the printing of calicoes. 

A material peculiarity in Mr. Perkins'' invention, and one which 

9 



192 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

does not seem to have been approached by any preceding artist, 
was the contrivance of what are called indenting cylinders. These 
are rollers two or three inches in diameter, and made of steel, 
decarbonized so as to be very soft. In this state they are made 
to roll backward and forward, under a powerful pressure, over the 
surface of one of the hardened plates, until all the figures, letters, 
or indentations are communicated with exquisite precision in sharp 
relief upon the cylinder, which being carefully hardened and tem- 
pered, becomes, by this means, fitted to communicate an impres- 
sion to other plates, by an operation similar to that by which it 
was originally figured. It will be obvious that one advantage 
gained by this method must be the entire saving of the labor and 
expense of recutting, in every case, on different plates, ornaments, 
borders, emblematical designs, &c. ; as these can now be im- 
pressed, with little trouble, on any number of plates, or in any 
part thereof, by the application of the cylinder. 

At first sight, the performance of such an operation as the one 
now alluded to may appear difficult, if not impracticable. Many 
persons, on its first announcement, were disposed to doubt or deny 
its possibility altogether. With a proper and powerful apparatus, 
however, this method of transferring engravings from plates to 
cylinders, and vice versa, is every day performed with facility and 
success in works exhibiting even very elaboi'ate engraving. By 
this means the most delicate designs, which would occupy an en- 
graver many months to effect by hand, can be completed in a few 
days. Of course the cylinders are produced at a much less price, 
and they may be executed in a very superior manner. 

Mr. Perkins has attracted a great deal of attention by his experi- 
ments in steam artillery, and in this has far distanced all his pre- 
decessors in this mode of warfare. Watt, it appears, once pro- 
jected something of the kind, but this man of peace did not proceed 
to much extent with the warlike project. Jonathan Hornblower 
also constructed what he called a steam rocket; and the French 
general Chasseloup proposed, some years later, (1805,) a similar 
plan for the defence of besieged places. M. Gerard, a French 
officer of engineers, is stated to have carried this idea into practice 
in 1814, for the purpose of defending Paris at the approach of the 
allies. In this apparatus the boiler was moved on a carriage, and 
supplied steam for propelling balls from six gun-barrels, the 
breeches of which were opened at pleasure ; on turning a handle, 
the six guns received each a ball and the steam at the same time, 
by a mechanism hke what is seen in magazine air-guns. The 
longest shots were made by turning the handle slowly, and one 
hundred and eighty balls were thrown in a minute. A wagon at- 



JACOB PERKINS. 193 

ten 'led the machine, to supply fuel and bullets. The capitulation 
of Paris prevented this novel artillery from being brought into ac- 
tion; and shortly afterwards the apparatus was taken to pieces. 

The experiments of Perkins were on a far more daring and 
extensive scale. The sounds produced by his steam-guns are 
said to resemble a rapid running fire of musketry, accompanied 
hy a rusthng sound or roar that quite deafened the unaccustomed 
ftar. In his experiments before the duke of Wellington and a 
numerous party of engineer officers, the balls at first were dis- 
charged at short intervals, in imitation of artillery firing against 
an iron target, at the distance of thirty-five yards, and such was 
the intensity of the propelling force, that they were completely 
shattered to atoms. In the next trial the balls were fired at a 
framing of wood, and they actually passed through eleven planks, 
each one inch thick, of the hardest deal, placed at a distance from 
each other. Balls, also, which were fired against an iron plate, 
one quarter of an inch in thickness, passed through it ; yet the 
pressure of steam required to produce this was estimated not 
much to exceed sixty-five atmospheres, or nine hundred pounds 
on each square inch. 

To demonstrate the rapidity with which musket balls might be 
thrown, he screwed on to a gun-barrel a tube filled with balls, 
which falling down by their own gravity into the barrel, were 
projected one by one with such extraordinaiy velocity, as to de- 
monstrate that, by means of a succession of tubes filled with balls, 
ficxed in a wheel, a model of which was exhibited, nearly one thou- 
sand balls per minute might be discharged. The next experiments 
were of a more interesting kind. To the gun-barrel was attached 
a moveable joint, a lateral direction was then given to it, and the 
balls perforated a hneal series of holes in a plank nearly twelve 
feet long. Thus, had the musket or gun been opposed to a regi- 
ment in extended line, it might have been made to shoot down 
each soldier in succession. 

A similar plank was then placed perpendicularly, and in like 
manner there was a string of shot holes throughout its whole 
length : and it was thus demonstrated that steam-guns could be 
made to shoot round a corner ! 

Mr. Perkins thus calculated this new mode of warfare : — Sup. 
pose two hundred and fifty balls are discharged in a minute by a 
single-barrelled gun, or fifteen thousand per hour ; this, for sixteen 
hours, would require about fifteen thousand pounds of powder, 
which, at seventy shillings per hundred weight, would cost five 
hundred and twenty pounds, (about two thousand three hundred 
dollars.) But the same number of balls can be thrown in sue- 



194 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

cession, and in the same time, for the price of five bushels of coai 
per hour, or about ten or twelve dollars for fifteen hours. 

After the experiments Perkins made at Greenwich before Prince 
Polignac, and some French engineers whom the Duke d'Angou- 
leme had sent to make a report to him concerning them, he 
received instructions to form a piece of ordnance to throw sixty 
balls, of four pounds each, in a minute. This he guarantied should 
be done with the correctness of a rifle musket, and to a propor- 
tionate distance. A musket was also attached to the same gene- 
rator for throwing a stream of lead from the bastion of a fort, and 
which he engaged to make so far portable as to be capable of 
being moved from one bastion to another. 

Both the French and English engineers before whom these ex- 
periments were made condemned the steam-gun as being of no real 
utility. The practical difficulties of working steam under such an 
enormous pressure were evident ; it being impossible to make it 
as powerful as gunpowder. Besides, all engines of war should be 
as simple as possible, for in the heat of action it is rarely that 
men are found to act with the self-possession necessary in the 
management of even the simplest machinery, no matter how well 
drilled they may previously have been in its management. 

It is not intended in derogation of the talents and ingenuity of 
Mr. Perkins, when we say his inventions have not all been as 
useful in practice as his friends might have wished. The merit, 
however, awarded to him is sufficient to establish his reputation 
as one of the most ingenious and philosophical citizens of the 
union ; and his exertions throughout have been of that laudable 
and meritorious kind, that, even in failure, ought to bring honor 




THOMAS BLANCHARD. 



THOMAS BLANCHARD, 



Birth. — Early fondness for mechanics. — Anecdote. — At thirteen years of age in- 
vents a machine for paring apples. — Assists his brother in the manufacturings 
of tacks. — Description of the process. — Invents a counting machine. — Learns 
the use of blacksmiths' and carpenters' tools. — Perseverance in perfecting the 
tack machine. — Final success. — Sells the patent right. — Makes great improve- 
ments in the manufacture of muskets. — Anecdote. — Invents the engine for 
turning'irregular forms. — Description. — ^Anecdote. — Is employed in the national 
armories in erecting the engines, and making other important improvements. 
— Congress grants the petition for a renewral of the patent right for the en- 
gine. — Interests himself in the subject of railroads. — Invents and makes ex- 
periments with a steam-carriage. — Petitions the legislature of Massachusetts. — 
The report of the committee. — Applies to the legislature of New York. — 
Interview with Gov. Clinton. — Abandons the project. — Invents a steamboat on 
a new principle to ascend Enfield Falls. — Makes an excursion up the Connec- 
ticut. — Builds a second and superior boat. — Constructs a steamboat on the 
AUeghany. — Its first voyage. — The Indian chief Cornplanter, and the steam- 
boat. — Encroachments. — Complimentary remarks of Judge Story on the ter- 
mination of a lawsuit. — Conclusion. 

Most of the following materials were obtained by solicitation 
from the subject of the memoir. We present them to the public 
with pleasure, as containing some of the leading incidents in the 
life of an unassuming, yet talented individual, who, by industry 
and perseverance in his peculiar department, claims an honorable 
station among the true benefactors of man. 

Thomas Blanchard was born in Sutton, Worcester county, 
Mass., on the 24th of June, 1788. Like most New Englanders, 
his ancestors were among the early settlers of our country. 
His father, Mr. Samuel Blanchard, stood high as an agriculturist, 
a situation solely due to the qualities of industry and economy for 
which he was noted. Thomas was the fifth of six sons ; his fond- 
ness for mechanical subjects may be dated back almost to the 
dawn of life ; his first recollections are of cutting up shingles with 
a knife into all kinds of toys, such as windmills, water-wheels, 
&c., and when old enough to attend school, he would be seized with 
an irresistible propensity to steal away from study, and employ 
the time with his then favorite tools, the knife and gimlet. His 
advantages for viewing mechanical operations were few, his resi- 
dence being in a portion of the town where there was not a 
workshop of any kind, except a country smith''s, and even that 
at some distance. The first time he recollects visiting this place 



198 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

was with his father, probably at the age of nine or ten. Being 
obhged to wait during the operation of shoeing their horse, his 
attention was fully occupied in watching the movements of the 
smith. What struck him with the greatest wonder and astonish, 
ment, was the process of heating and welding two nailrods, and 
he thought he would give all he possessed to perform such a 
miraculous operation. 

On their road home young Blanchard's mind was full of what 
he had seen. His thoughts were now raised far above the knife 
and gimlet, and he was determined, if possible, to imitate the 
wonder he had just witnessed. Standing near the house was an 
old weaving shop, containing in the lower part a place for farming 
tools, and in the attic a parcel of scraps of old iron, from which 
our young experimenter obtained a full supply. The next, and 
most troublesome step, was the procuring of fuel ; to effect this 
he determined upon watching the kitchen fire, and, when his 
mother's back was turned, to wet the burning coals, take them 
away, and secrete them in a snug corner of the cellar ; but finding 
this a slow, as well as tedious operation, he had recourse, on 
baking days, to his mother's oven. In a few weeks all was ready, 
and his parents setting out on a visit to some relations in a neigh- 
boring town, gave the long wished-for opportunity. Previous to 
their departure he was enjoined to perform a certain task : this 
he commenced, and for a while made rapid progress, but being 
unable to withstand the temptation, soon abandoned it for the new 
and more agreeable scheme. Taking the bellows from the 
kitchen, and collecting the materials frorrf a pile of brick and 
stone in the yard, he managed to build a very good forge in the 
weaving shop. An anvil was still wanting, and for a moment he 
was at loss how to proceed, but happening to think of one of his 
father's wedges, he obtained it, and driving it into a block, left the 
square end sufficiently high for the intended purpose ; and finally, 
bringing out his coals from the cellar corner, he was ready to 
blow up the fire early the next morning. On commencing, he 
succeeded very well in beating the iron into the required shape ; 
his ambition now was to join two pieces into one, but being igno- 
rant of the " welding heat," in vain exerted his utmost skill ; it 
then occurred to him, if he could only make another visit to the 
smith, he would be enabled to surmount the difficulty. While 
devising further plans his parents returned, and his father enter- 
ing and viewing his son's work, at first feigned to look displeased, 
but could not refrain from relaxing his countenance at the ludi 
crous imitation, and after inquiring where the coals came fronc. 
ended by ordering the youthful Vulcan to take down his forge 



THOMAS BLANCHARD. 199 

and return the materials to their appropriate places ; thus ended 
his first important mechanical experiment. 

At the age of thirteen having heard of a machine for paring 
apples, he was determined to make one, and employed all his 
leisure in the invention. Although he had received but a mere 
hint of its operation, it was soon ready for trial, but at first proved 
unsuccessful : no difficulty was experienced in fixing the apple so 
as to revolve on turning a crank, yet on applying the knife to the 
fruit it would run in towards its centre, instead of cutting a thin 
paring. Not in the least discouraged, he set his " young wits" 
to work to remedy the deficiency, and the first step was to watch 
the operation of paring by hand. He observed that the thick- 
ness of the shaving was gauged by the thumb of the hand hold- 
ing the cutter. This led him to see the necessity of fixing a gauge 
to the knife. Here he learned an important fact, one that may 
be termed hisj^rs^ lesson in the way of invention, — viz. to imitate 
nature, as in the use of the hand, where machinery is substituted 
for hand operations. The success of this invention was soon 
known throughout the neighborhood, and young Blanchard thence- 
forth became a favorite at all the "paring hees,'''' where he would 
accomplish more with his machine than half a dozen girls by hand. 

The success attending this undertaking gave him new ideas 
and a greater thirst for invention. Soon after he went to reside 
with an elder brother, who had a number of persons, mostly boys, 
to assist him in the business of manufacturing tacks. The opera- 
tion was to cut them into points from a thin plate of iron, after 
which they were taken up, one at a time, with the thumb and 
finger, and held in a tool griping them by the movement of a lever. 
The lever was put in motion by one foot, while a blow was simul- 
taneously given with a hammer held in the right hand, making a 
flat head of the large end of the point which projected above the 
head of the tool. This was the only method then known, and so 
very slow and irksome, that young Blanchard would often grow 
tired and disgusted. As a daily task, he was given a certain 
quantity to manufacture, which number was ascertained by weigh- 
ing and counting : finding this too much trouble, he was induced 
to construct a counting machine. This was a very ingenious con- 
trivance, consisting of a ratchet wheel moving one tooth every 
time the jaws of the heading tool moved in the process of mak- 
ing one tack, to which a bell was also attached in such a manner 
as to give a signal by ringing when the required number was 
completed. 

His brother, on witnessing its operation, forbid him wasting time 
on such idle projects. He was not, however, of a disposition to 



290 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

be frustrated in ideas, if he could not execute plans ; and even at 
this early day began to conceive of the design of a machine for 
cutting and heading tacks. Although his brother would endeavor 
to discourage him, by saying that it was too small and intricate a 
process to be performed by machinery, yet he was determined 
that whenever he became sufficiently skilled, and possessed the 
means, to prosecute the undertaking. 

His father not having any fondness for mechanics, and excelling 
in his own calling, was resolved to bring up his son Thomas in 
the same pursuit ; but at last, satisfied of its utter impossibility, 
allowed him to follow that path for which his genius had peculiarly 
fitted him ; not, however, without expressing a truly paternal de- 
sire that he should aim at the acquisition of a thorough, practical 
knowledge of whatever was attempted. The first, and by far 
most important step, was learning the use of blacksmiths' tools ; 
after which Blanchard became skilled in the different modes of 
working on wood, turning, &c., which in his subsequent career 
has given him a decided advantage over others possessing only a 
theoretical knowledge. 

So ardent was he in the pursuit of new projects in the arts, that 
his early education was greatly neglected, yet the practical know- 
ledge acquired in youth, in some measure supplied the want of 
literary acquirements ; affording, perhaps, in the opinion of some, 
an additional illustration of the saying of a late philosopher, " that 
a self-taught man is more likely to produce useful and original 
ideas, than one who gathers his knowledge from books,''' — an 
axiom so far true, as self-reliance is better than dependence, while a 
certain medium oflfers superior advantages. 

At the age of eighteen, Blanchard commenced the invention of 
the tack machine, but was compelled to lay it aside for a time for 
the want of means. Refunding himself from his other occu- 
pations, he recommenced the project, until exhausted resources 
once more obliged him to abandon it. This course he pursued 
alternately, for a period of six years, expending all he could raise 
upon his darling project, carrying the models about from place to 
place, wherever he could find employment, and throwing the old 
ones aside as fast as improvements were suggested. Of daunt- 
less perseverance, the advice and earnest entreaties of friends in 
dissuasion from this apparently hopeless undertaking, but added 
fuel to the flame. Success at last crowned his efforts, and so 
complete was the operation, that by placing the iron into the tube 
or hopper, and applying the moving power, five hundred tacks 
could be made per minute, with more finished heads and points 
Ihan were ever made by hand. Such was its perfection, that a 



THOMAS BLANCHARD. 201 

half -ounce weight would balance a thousand. Securing the patent, 
he sold the right for five thousand dollars to a company who went 
extensively into the business ; a slender compensation consider- 
ing its importance, but small as it was, it relieved him of em- 
barrassments, and placed him some thousands ahead. 

Mr. Bianchard being a practical operator in all branches of 
machinery, and possessing also economical habits, together with 
an unwearied perseverance, was enabled to execute his plans at a 
comparatively small expense The success of his tack machine 
inspired him with new confidence, and a greater desire for im- 
provement in the arts. 

About this time, attempts were making in the various armories 
under the patronage of government, to turn musket barrels with 
an external finish, instead of pursuing the then common and very 
imperfect mode of reducing them to a uniform thickness by grind- 
ing. In accordance with the advice of a friend, possessing great 
confidence in his skill, Bianchard was induced to invent a machine 
for turning the cylindrical part of the barrel. There was then 
remaining about three inches at the breech, requiring to be cut in 
a different figure, with two flat and oval sides, and, finally, finished 
by chipping, filing, and grinding. He undertook, with perfect suc- 
cess, the construction of a lathe to turn the whole of the barrel, from 
end to end, by the combination of one single, self-directing operation. 
To effect this, it was placed in the lathe, and the process commenced 
at the muzzle, in the ordinary way, turning the cylindrical portion 
first; but as the cutting instrument approached the breech, the 
motion was very ingeniously changed into a vibrating one, so as 
to cut the flats and ovals perfectly parallel with the calibre of the 
barrel. This was effected by a cam-wheel placed in the arbor of 
the lathe, and operated by a lever. A knowledge of this impor- 
tant improvement coming to the superintendent of the United 
States'* armory at Springfield, a contract was made with Bianchard 
to erect one at that establishment.* While the workmen were 
gathered around to witness its operation, an incident occurred 
which finally led to the truly wonderful invention for turning 
irregular forms. One of the men, addressing himself to a com- 
panion, says, "Well, John, he has spoiled your job!" "I care 
not for that," was the reply, " as long as I can get a better." 
One of the musket-stockers, with a confident shake of the head, 
then boastingly exclaimed, " that he (Bianchard) could not spoil 
his, for he could not turn a gun-stock!" This remark struck 

* This armory is by far the most extensive in the Union, furnishing employ- 
ment for three hundred men, who annually manufacture fourteen thousand 
muskets. 



202 AMERICAN MECHANICil. 

Blanchard very forcibly^ and in answer he observed, " I am not 
so sure of that, but will think of it a while." The idea of turning 
by machinery such a long irregular form as the stock of a musket, 
seemed absurd, but he could not banish the subject from his mind. 
After remaining a few days longer at Springfield, he left for his 
residence in Worcester county. While passing in a one-horse 
vehicle, in a state of deep meditation, through the old town of 
Brimfield, the whole principle of turning irregular forms from a 
pattern at once burst upon his mind : the idea was so pleasing and 
forcible, that, like Archim.edes of old, he exclaimed aloud, " I have 
got it ! I have got it!'''' — Two countrymen, overhearing this, sud- 
denly started up from the way-side, with countenances expressive 
of wonder ; when one of them, addressing his companion, said, 
" I guess that man''s crazy." 

In a short time, Blanchard built a model of this machine, and 
so exact were its operations that it would perfectly turn a minia- 
ture stock. 

This machine is represented in the engraving in its most simple 
form, for turning shoe-lasts ; and is so constructed that, from one as 
a pattern, an exa.ct facsimile can be formed from a rough block of 
wood. Both the pattern and block are fixed on the same axis, and 
are made to revolve around their common centre, in a swinging 
lathe, by a pulley and bolt on one end of the axis, as shown in the 
engraving. On a sliding carriage is attached three posts, through 
which are fixed pivots, to which are suspended the axles of a cutting 
and a. friction wheel. The cutting wheel, which is about one foot 
in diameter, turns on a horizontal axle, and to its periphery is fixed 
a number of crooked cutters to act hke a gouge when the wheel is 
put in motion. This cutting wheel is placed opposite the rough block. 
The friction wheel, which is of the same diameter as the cutting 
wheel, is placed opposite the pattern, so as to press against it when 
in motion. These two wheels are in a line with each other, and 
are attached to the same carriage. On the axle of the cutting 
wheel is fixed a pulley, around which passes a band which puts 
the cutting wheel in motion by a large drum revolving under it. 
A crank, or first mover, communicates motion to the drum, which 
in its turn transfers a rapid motion to the cutting wheel ; while a 
band which passes from a small pulley on the drum-shaft, puts in 
operation a feeding screw-pulley, which moves the sliding car- 
riage horizontally from left to right. Another pulley on the drum- 
shaft gives a slow rotary motion both to the pattern and the rough 
block, in a direction opposite to that of the cutting wheel. The 
friction wheel is turned by the pattern resting against it. 

During the revolution, the pattern, being irregular in its surface, 




BLANCHARD'S LATHE. 



THOMAS BLANCHARD. 205 

causes the axis to approach and recede from the wheel. Thus it 
will be seen, as it presents its whole surface to the friction wheel, 
so in like manner the block presents its surface to the cutting wheel, 
which being in rapid motion cuts away all that part of the block 
which is farther from the common centre than the surface of the 
pattern, and thus forms, from a rough block, an exact resemblance 
of the model. 

To form a facsimile in reverse, as a left foot shoe-last, from 
a right foot shoe-last, it is only necessary that the pattern should 
revolve in an opposite direction from the block. A whole sett of 
lasts, both right and left, can be formed by one pattern, either 
larger or smaller than the model. This is done by changing th'e 
motion and speed of different parts of the machine. To form an 
object longer than the pattern, the cutting wheel must travel in its 
right-angle movement faster than the friction wheel, or vice versa. 
To form it larger in diameter than the pattern, the axis of the 
cutting wheel must be kept at a greater distance from the axis of 
the block than the axis of the pattern is from the axis of the fric- 
tion wheel. Thus it is plain that an article can be formed by this 
operation larger or smaller than the model, and still be of the 
same proportions. 

This machine can be applied to turning many different articles 
with great facility and perfection, such as shoe-lasts, gun-stocks, 
spokes of wheels, hat-blocks, tackle-blocks, wig-blocks, and any 
other objects, no matter how irregular their forms, provided their 
surfaces can be brought in contact with he periphery of the fric 
tion wheel. 

While at Washington, securing the patent, Blanchard exhibited 
the machine at the war office, where most of the heads of the 
different departments had assembled. Among the rest was Com- 

modore R , then one of the navy commissioners, who, after 

witnessing its operation and listening to the remarks made, as to 
the various articles that it could form, jocosely says to the inventor, 
"Can you turn a seventy four f'' " Yes !" was the reply, " if you 
will furnish a block.'''' 

The secretary of war was so well satisfied with it, that an 
agreement was entered into with the inventor to build one imme- 
<liate]y for the national armory at Harper's Ferry. He subse- 
quently put one in operation at the Springfield establishment. 
This opened the way to his other important improvements in the 
stocking of arms, since universally adopted, consisting in the cut 
ting in the cavity for the lock, barrel, butt-plates, and other parts 
of the mounting, comprising, together with the turning the stock 
and barrel, no less than thirteen different machines. Mr. Blan- 



206 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

chard was thus occupied in the employment of government for a 
period of five years, during which time he had given but Httle 
attention to the bringing of the turning machine into use for those 
other purposes for which it was as well adapted. An opportunily 
was therefore given to violators, of which they duly took advan- 
tage ; and more than fifty machines were put in operation, during 
the first term of the patent, in various parts of the Union, for 
turning shoe-lasts, handles, spokes, and many other articles, from 
which he derived no benefit ; and all that was received was the 
government price of nine cents on each musket made at their two 
armories, at Harper's Ferry and Springfield. On the expiration 
of the first term of the patent in 1833, he petitioned congress for 
a renewal, which was granted on the grounds that this was an 
original machine, standing among the first American inventions, 
while the inventor had not been compensated according to its utility. 
In 1825, the public attention was attracted to the subject of rail- 
roads and locomotive power. Blanchard having completed his 
engagements at the armories, built a carriage at Springfield, to 
travel by steam on common roads. This, it is believed, was the 
first locomotive put in operation in this country, unless, indeed, the 
rude contrivance of Evans may be dignified with such an appella- 
tion. It was perfectly manageable, could turn corners, and go 
backwards and forwards with all the facility of a well-trained horse, 
and on ascending a hill the power could be increased. Blanchard 
was so well satisfied with it, that he secured a patent. He also 
built models of railroad turn-outs, and other improvements now in 
general use. Independent of this, he went so far as to exert him- 
self to raise a company to build railroads, and with this view sub- 
^ mitted his plans and improvements to a committee of the Massa- 
chusetts legislature, who reported as follows : — 

" Boston, January 23, 1826. 

" The undersigned, having seen the model of a railway and 
steam-carriage invented by Mr. Thomas Blanchard, of Springfield, 
in this commonwealth, are of opinion, from their own examina- 
tions, and from those of scientific men in this vicinity, that they 
are valuable improvements, and peculiarly adapted for use in this 
country : and, as such, are recommended to all the friends of in- 
ternal improvements. 

" John Mills, 

" James Satage, Joint Committee 

" Robert Rantotjl, > on 

" Levi Fakwell, Roads and Canals." 

, I. . " William B. Calhoun, , 



THOMAS BLANCHARD. 207 

Notwithstanding this satisfactory report, capitalists viewed it as 
a visionary project. Blanchard then applied to the legislature of 
New York, and, explaining his plans to Governor Clinton, pro- 
posed to try the experiment of building a railroad from Albany to 
Schenectady ; but he was of opinion that it was too soon after the 
completion of the Erie canal. Finding himself before the times, 
he abandoned the subject. 

In 1826, it was determined by some gentlemen residing at 
Hartford to improve the navigation at the rapids called Enfield 
Falls, on the Connecticut, between that city and Springfield. 
These falls are in a rocky, crooked channel of about two miles 
in length, and are composed of a number of short, shoal rapids, 
amounting in the whole to about thirty feet descent. The method 
at that time employed was to navigate them in flat-boats, and even 
then it was impossible to ascend them without a favorable wind 
and the assistance of polesmen. Accordingly, a company was 
formed and the funds raised to build a steamboat for this purpose. 
Previous to commencing, an agent was sent to examine the differ- 
ent kinds of boats in use on the western waters. On his return, 
one was buUt in New York, on the most approved plan, with the 
wheel under the stern, but, on trial, it proved unsuccessful. The 
project was then given up as useless, and a canal dug around the 
falls, at an expense of two hundred thousand dollars, sufficiently 
large to admit of the passage of a small steamer. In anticipation 
of its completion, a company in Springfield employed Mr. Blan- 
chard as an agent to build a steamboat. While it was construct- 
ing, a freshet damaged the canal so as to cause over a year''s delay 
in its completion. This event caused Blanchard to make the at- 
tempt to navigate the falls with their boat, but it proved as fruitless 
as the experiment of the canal company. This led him to study 
the subject more fully, — to make experiments as to the best form 
for a boat and wheels, — to examine the rapids, ascertain the speed 
of the water, and calculate the power required to ascend them. 
While thus engaged, he made an important discovery, in which 
consisted the true secret of his success. This was in placing the 
wheel at that point astern where the greatest eddy is formed by 
the filling in of the water after the passage of the boat ; — an ar- 
rangement by which the paddles give a much more powerful effect 
than when placed on the sides or immediately astern, as on the 
western rivers : and for the simple reason that the vacuum created 
by the passage of the boat causes the current to set in after it with 
such velocity as to offer a very powerful resistance to the paddles 
as they strike against the water. 

Finding no one willing to assist him, he was determined to 



208 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

build, at his own expense, a boat on the foregoing plan. While 
constructing, it was regarded by the public as a visionary scheme 
and a waste of money. It was made of the best materials, of light 
draught, and wrought instead of cast iron used in the formation of 
the engine. By little practice, she ascended the falls with perfect 
ease, and made her daily trips between Springfield and Hartford 
as a passage-boat. This was the commencement of a new era in 
the prosperity of Springfield, for Hartford was no longer the head 
of steam navigation. 

In the autumn of 1828, Blanchard made an excursion with a 
party in his boat up the Connecticut above Springfield, passing 
through its fertile and romantic valley for a distance of one hun- 
dred and fifty miles. Many of the inhabitants had never seen a 
steamboat, and consequently flocked to the river by thousands to 
witness the wonderful power of steam. Having heard of the burst- 
ing of boilers, many were at first afraid to approach ; but curiosity 
conquering their fears, they became anxious to see and take a 
short trip. Its arrival was welcomed by the ringing of bells and 
the firing of cannon. At one village, so great was the enthusiasm 
that a line was formed on the river bank, composed of all sexes, 
who, as she passed, made the welkin ring with their acclamations. 

The success of this boat, which was named the Vermont, in- 
duced Blanchard to build another and far superior one, (the Mas- 
sachusetts,) of a larger size, and drawing eighteen inches of water. 
The wheel and weighty portions of the machinery were supported 
by two arches of peculiar construction running lengthwise of the 
vessel, combining great strength with little weight. She was thus 
enabled to carry two steam engines, one on each side, driving the 
paddle wheel, with a crank on each end of the wheel shaft, set at 
right angles with each other. By this arrangement there was not 
any dead point, or slacking of the wheel, while making a revolu- 
tion, — a very important point in ascending rapids. The faciUty 
of this mode of conveyance caused the travel and transportation to 
more than double between the two places. 

Finding that small rapid rivers could be navigated by this mode 
of conveyance, Mr. Blanchard soon had. many applications from 
different parts of the union, and in 1830 was employed to build a 
boat on the Alleghany, to ply between Pittsburg and Olean Point, 
a distance of three hundred miles ; the fall amounting in the whole 
to six hundred feet, and the river in many places very rapid. This 
boat was named the Alleghany, and set out on her first trip in the 
month of May, with thirty passengers and twenty-five tons of 
freight, passing through many pleasant villages where a steamboat 
had never been. On reaching the village of the celebrated Indian 



THOMAS BLANCHARD. 209 

chief Cornplanter, an invitation was given him to take an excur. 
sion up the river ; he at first hesitated, but on being assured that 
there was no danger, went on board with his family. He wit- 
nessed the various parts of the machinery, the engine, paddle 
wheels, &;c., with astonishment, exclaiming, in broken English, 
" Great ! — great ! — great power /" The Alleghany drawing only 
eighteen inches of water, was enabled to ascend many of the small 
streams that empty into the Ohio, and so estabhshed the practica- 
hihty of navigating small and rapid rivers, that this kind of boat 
has since gone into universal use. 

Like all other inventors, Blanchard has experienced his share 
of wrong from the selfishness of his fellow men. He has secured 
no less than twenty-four patents for as many different inventions. 
But a small portion have been of sufficient benefit to pay for the 
expense of getting them up. Many of them have been used with- 
out consent, or even so far as giving him the credit of their inven- 
tion. While making his first model for turning irregular forms, 
a neighbor attempted to defraud him of it, by obtaining others to 
privately watch his movements, who would copy as fast as he pro- 
gressed. On Blanchard's going to Washington to secure the right, 
to his great astonishment he found a caveat had been lodged for 
the same invention only the day previous. Luckily he had taken 
the precaution, at the time his model was first put into operation, 
to call two witnesses to view it, and note the date ; so he was en- 
abled on trial to sustain his right. Scarcely, however, was this 
difficulty surmounted before another attempt was made to deprive 
him of it. A company was about forming in Boston, to put it into 
operation for turning ships'' tackle-blocks, for which right the in- 
ventor was to receive several thousand dollars. Two individuals, 
discovering, on examination, (as they thought,) that the claim was 
too broad, informed Blanchard of it, at the same time threatening 
that, unless he would give them one half of what he was about to 
receive, they would make it public : he rejected these proposals 
with scorn and indignation. Thereupon an article appeared in 
the prints, cautioning the public, and stating that the inventor had 
claimed more than he had invented. This so alarmed those in- 
terested, that a stop was put to the formation of the company ; he 
thereupon surrendered up the patent, and took out another. 

After he obtained a renewal of his patent by act of congress 
in 1834, he was determined to prosecute, in order to realize 
something from his labors. On bringing a suit before Judge 
Story, of Boston, he was nonsuited through two defects in the 
patent : one of which was in the date of the patent set forth 
m the act, and the other in terming the invention a machine, 



210 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

instead of an engine. On application to congress, although stren- 
uously opposed by the defendants in the former case, the mis- 
take was rectified. Subsequently another suit was commenced 
against the same violators. The defence set up was, — first, that 
the plaintiff" did not describe his machine so clearly in the specifica- 
tion as to enable a skilful artist to build it ; secondly, that the ma- 
chine was not the invention of the plaintiiF; and thirdly, that the 
claim was for the function, and not for the machine itself. But 
not any proof being brought to establish this defence, the court 
overruled all objections, and gave judgment for the plaintiff". His 
honor Judge Story, on making his remarks, paid the following 
high compHment to Mr. Blanchard, viz. : " That after much 
trouble, care, and anxiety, he will be enabled to enjoy the fruits, 
unmolested, of his inventive genius, of which he had a high opin- 
ion ; and it aff"orded him much pleasure in thus being able publicly 
to express it." 

Mr. Blanchard, at the present time, is residing in New York 
city, where he is engaged in an invention promising to be of supe- 
rior utility. We trust that success will attend all his future efforts : 
and may he continue to merit the increased gratitude of his fellow- 
citizens by the productions of his inventive talents. 



HENRY ECKFORD. 



Birth. — Is placed with an eminent naval constructor at Quebec. — Commences 
ship-building in New York. — Establishes the reputation of the naval archi- 
tecture of that city. — Improvements. — Indebtedness of our country to his exei- 
tions during the late war. — Verplanck's tribute to his memory. — Builds the 
steam-ship " Robert Fulton." — Is appointed naval constructor at Brooklyn. — 
Builds the Ohio. — Resigns.— Is engaged in constructing vessels of war for the 
various European and some of the South American governments. — Plan for a 
new organization of the navy. — Unfortunate connection with a stock company. 
— Honorable acquittal. — Is appointed chief naval constructor of the Turkish 
empire. — Death. — Character. 

We are indebted to the kindness of a friend for the following 
memoir of one, whose talents and industry evinced in improving 
the popular arm of our national defence, should render our coun- 
try proud of ranking him among her adopted children. 

Henry Eckford was born at Irvine, (Scotland,) March 12, 1775. 
At the age of sixteen he was sent out to Canada, and placed under 
the care of his maternal uncle, Mr. John Black, an eminent naval 
constructor at Quebec. Here he remained for three or four years, 
and in 1796, at the age of twenty-one, commenced his labors in 
New York. His untiring industry and attention to business soon 
procured for him numerous friends ; and the superior style in 
which his ships were built excited general attention. At that time 
the vessels constructed at Philadelphia stood highest in the public 
esteem ; but it is scarcely too much to say, that those built by 
Mr. Eckford soon occupied the first rank, and gradually New York 
built ships bore away the palm from all competitors. Equally con- 
versant with the theoretical as well as with the practical part of 
his profession, he never frittered away his own time or the money 
of his employers in daring experiments, which so often extort ap- 
plause from the uninformed multitude. He preferred feeling his 
way cautiously, step by step. Upon the return of one of his ves- 
sels from a voyage, by a series of questions he obtained from her 
commander an accurate estimate of her properties under all the 
casualties of navigation. This, connected with her form, enabled 
him to execute his judgment upon the next vessel to be built. In 
this way he proceeded, successively improving the shape of each, 
until those constructed by him, or after his models, firmly estab- 



212 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

lished the character of New York built ships over those of any 
other port in the union. 

It would be impossible, within the limits prescribed by the na 
ture of this work, to point out the various improvements in the 
shape and rig of all classes of vessels suggested by the fertile 
mind of Mr. Eckford ; and perhaps their technical details would be 
unintelligible to ordinary readers. It is sufficient to observe, that 
after his models our vessels gradually dispensed with their large 
and low stern frames, the details of their rigging underwent ex- 
tensive changes, and in the important particulars of stability, 
speed, and capacity, they soon far surpassed their rivals. 

Mr. Eckford had married and become identified with the inter- 
ests of his adopted country when the war broke out between 
America and England. He entered into contracts with the gov- 
ernment to construct vessels on the lakes, and the world witnessed 
with astonishment a fleet of brigs, sloops of war, frigates, and ships 
of the line, constructed within an incredibly short space of time. 
At the present day, we can scarcely appreciate the difficulties and 
discouragements under which operations on so extended a scale 
were obliged to be conducted. The country was comparatively 
wild and uninhabited, the winters long and severe, provisions and 
men, with the iron-work, tools, rigging, and sails, were to be 
transported from the sea-coast, the timber was still waving in the 
forests, and, to crown the whole, the funds provided by the govern- 
ment were in such bad repute, that, to obtain current funds there- 
from, Mr. Eckford was obliged to give his personal guarantee. 

Under all these embarrassments, he commenced his operations 
with his accustomed activity and judgment, organized his plans, 
and offered every inducement to the interests, the pride, and the 
patriotism of those in his employ to labor to the extent of their 
ability. Encouraged by his presence and example, they entered 
upon their labors with enthusiasm, and neither night nor day saw 
a respite to their toils. The consequences were quickly apparent. 
A respectable fleet was soon afloat, and our frontier preserved 
from the invasion of a foe as active and persevering as ourselves. 
In allusion to these efforts, one of our intelligent citizens, Mr. Ver. 
planck, in a discourse delivered before the Mechanics' Institute, 
has happily observed, " I cannot forbear from paying a passing 
tribute to the memory of a townsman and a friend. It is but a 
few days since that the wealth, talent, and public station of this j 
city were assembled to pay honor to the brave and excellent Com- | 
modore Chauncey. Few men could better deserve such honors, \ 
either by public service or private worth ; but all of us who recol- I 
lect the events of the struggle for naval superiority on the lakes 



HENRY ECKFORD. 213 

during the late war with Great Britain, could not help calling to 
mind that the courage, the seamanship, and ability of Chauncey 
would have been exerted in vain, had they not been seconded by 
the skill, the enterprise, the science, the powers of combination, 
and the inexhaustible resources of the ship-builder, Henry Eck- 
ford." 

At the conclusion of the war, his accounts, involving an amount 
of several millions of dollars, were promptly and honorably settled 
with the government. 

Shortly after this, he constructed a steam-ship, the " Robert 
Fulton," of a thousand tons, to navigate between New York and 
New Orleans. Unlike the hght and fairy-like models of the pre- 
sent day, which seem only fit for smooth water and summer seas, 
she was a stout and burdensome vessel, fitted to contend with the 
storms of the Atlantic, and her performance, even with the dis- 
advantage of an engine of inadequfite power, far exceeded every 
expectation. The sudden death of her owner, in cormection with 
other circumstances, caused her to be sold ; and it is no slight 
commendation of her model, that when she was afterwards rigged 
into a sailing vessel, she became the fastest and most efficient 
sloop-of-war (mounting twenty-four guns) in the Brazilian navy. 
It is to be regretted that the model then proposed by Mr. Eckford 
for sea steamers has not been followed. The vain attempt to ob- 
tain speed, without a corresponding change in the shape of the 
model, that would enable them to contend successfully with heavy 
seas, has been attended with disgraceful failures, involving an im- 
mense loss of lives. 

A strong feeling of professional pride induced Mr. Eckford to 
accept an invitation from the Secretary of the navy to become 
naval constructor at Brooklyn. He was desirous of building a 
line-of-battle ship for the ocean that should serve as a model fo-r 
future vessels of that class, and in the Ohio, we believe, it is gene- 
rally conceded such a model has been obtained. Her ports, it is 
true, have been altered to suit the whim of some ignorant ofiicer, 
who has thus weakened her frame in order to imitate an English 
model, and her spars have been curtailed of their due proportions, 
to gratify a commissioner ''s fancy ; but, under aU these disadvan- 
tages, she is to remain a model for future constructors. Unfor- 
tunately, our marine was then encumbered, as it is now, with a 
board of commissioners composed of old navy officers, who fancied 
that because they commanded ships they could build them, — an 
idea as preposterous as it would have been to have intrusted the 
naval constructors with their command. Under this sage adminis- 
tration of the affairs of the navy, six ships of the line, costing four 



214 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

millions of dollars, were constructed ; the constructors received 
their orders from the sages at Washington, and each vessel, as 
M^as to have been expected, became vs^orse than the preceding. 
Tvro of them are permitted to rot in the mud, a third has been 
cut dovs^n to a frigate possessing no very creditable properties, and 
the others, if not .humanely suffered to rot, vi^ill probably foUov/ 
their example. 

The same signal disgrace has fallen upon our sloops of w^ar. 
Under a mistaken idea of strength and stability, their frames are 
solid, and in many instances their leeway and headway are nearly 
balanced. Some of them, we are officially informed, possess 
every desirable property, except that they are rather difficult to 
steer ! Those in the least acquainted with the subject need hardly 
be informed that this exception, trifling as it seems, is conclusive 
against the model. 

At the head of this board was Commodore John Rodgers, and 
his instructions and his orders were to be the basis of Mr. Eck- 
ford^s operations. These orders, copied, for the most part, out 
of some exploded work on naval architecture, were wisely disre. 
garded, although their receipt was duly acknowledged ; and he has 
been heard to observe, that when the vessel was completed, he 
would have challenged the whole board to have examined and 
pointed out in what particulars their orders had not been implicitly 
obeyed. Under the orders of the commissioners, he had prepared 
a model which, after due examination, was graciously approved of 
When Mr. Eckford proceeded to lay down the vessel, he thought 
fit to introduce many important changes, and the only genuine 
draught of the Ohio is now owned by Mr. Isaac Webb, one of the 
most intelligent of his pupils. The consequence, however, of these 
collisions between presuming ignorance and modest worth were 
soon obvious. Mr. Eckford resigned his commission on the day 
the Ohio was laimched ; and shortly after received an intimation, 
that he would never see her put in commission as long as the mem- 
bers of that board held their seats. This promise, as our readers 
are aware, was kept for eighteen years. 

Shortly after this he engaged extensively in his profession ; and 
so great and extended became his reputation, that he was called 
upon to construct vessels of war for various European powers, and 
for some of the republics of South America. Among others, he 
built and despatched to Columbia and Brazil four 64 gun-ships, of 
2000 tons each, in the incredibly short space of eighteen months 
In these cases his accounts were promptly adjusted, and he re 
ceived from all parties highly honorable testimonials of his integ 
rity, punctuality, and good faith. He subsequently received pro 



Ui:.NRY ECKFORD. . 215 

posals to build two frigates for Greece; but as he thought he 
perceived, on the part of the agents, a disposition to take an unfair 
advantage of the necessities of that nation, he honorably and hu- 
manely declined their tempting propositions. All are aware of 
the disastrous and (to this country) disgraceful manner in which 
that business terminated. 

Upon the accession of General Jackson to the presidency, he 
received from him an invitation to furnish him with a plan for a 
new organization of the navy. This was promptly furnished, and 
was pronounced by all who read it to be exactly what was required 
for an efficient and economical administration of the navy. It was 
not acted upon, although its adoption would have materially ad- 
vanced the interests of the country. Among other novel proposi- 
tions, it was recommended to remodel entirely the dockyards. 
These were to be under the superintpjjdence of superannuated 
commodores, who, in taking command, would relinquish their rank 
and make way for more active officers. The constructor at each 
yard was to be held responsible for the quantity and quality of 
work done, and only amenable to the chief constructor at Wash- 
ington. This latter office, he took occasion, however, to say, he 
could not, under any circumstances, be persuaded to accept. He 
wished, in short, from what he had himself observed of the extra- 
vagance, waste, and delay at our dockyards, to place them on a 
civil footing, as more consonant to the feelings of the mechanics 
and the spirit of our institutions. 

About this period he determined to prepare and publish a work 
on naval architecture, for which he had ample materials, and 
numerous draughts of vessels of almost every class. He had also 
set aside twenty thousand dollars to establish a professorship of 
naval architecture in Columbia college, and had already entered 
mto correspondence with an eminent constructor, Mr. Doughty, 
whom he had intended as the first professor, when a disastrous 
affair occurred, involving his reputation and his ample fortune. 
An insurance company, in which he was largely interested, be- 
came, in the panic of the day, insolvent, and its creditors ventured, 
in the madness of the moment, to throw doubts on the hitherto 
unimpeached character of Mr. Eckford. In this they were aided 
by a knot of political partisans, to whom his silent, but gradually 
increasing popularity, (which had, long ere this, placed him in 
the state legislature,) was gall and wormwood. Notwithstanding 
he satisfactorily proved that he had lost, by stock, and other ad- 
vances to save the sinking credit of the company, nearly half a 
million of dollars, yet his enemies affected to discredit his testi- 
mony, upon the ground that such unparalleled sacrifices were too 

10 



216 AMERICAN MECHANICS. 

disinterested to be credible. The termination of the investigation 
resulted in his complete and honorable acquittal, but the venomed 
shaft rankled in his kind and gentle breast to the hour of his 
death. It is no consolation to his numerous friends and relatives 
to know, that all who joined in this base conspiracy against this 
pure-minded and well-principled man have since paid the forfeit 
of their infuriated zeal, by the silent, but withering contempt of 
their fellow-citizens. 

In 1831, he built a sloop-of-war for the Sultan Mahmoud, and 
was induced to visit Turkey. His fame as a skilful architect had 
preceded him, and he was shortly afterwards offered the situation 
of chief naval constructor for the empire. A field worthy of his 
enterprise seemed open to him. With his characteristic energy 
he commenced the organization of the navy yard, and laid down 
the keel of a ship of the line. He had rapidly entered in her con- 
struction, and had so far advanced in the favor of the sultan that 
preparations were in train to create him a Bey of the empire, when 
his labors were suddenly brought to a close by his lamented death, 
from inflammation of the bowels, which occurred November 12, 
1832, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. 

In private life, Eckford was remarkably simple in his manners 
and habits. Abstemious and temperate, he always possessed un- 
clouded faculties ; and his quiet attention and kindness to all under 
his control enabled him to secure their ready co-operation in any 
of his plans which required from them willing and prompt exer- 
tions. The scrupulous observance of his contracts to the mi- 
nutest particular was with him a point of honor ; and his deaHngs 
with his fellow-men bore rather the character of princely munifi- 
cence than the generosity of a private individual. Throughout 
life, and amid transactions involving milhons, he maintained the 
same unassuming habits, considering himself but the mere trustee 
for the benefit of others ; and died as he had lived, honored and 
beloved by all who knew him. 




JOHN SMEATON. 



FOREIGN MECHANICS 



JOHN SMEATON. 

John Smeaton was born the 28th of May, 1724, at Austhorpe, 
near Leeds. The strength of his understanding and the origin- 
ality of his genius appeared at an early age. His playthings, 
it is said by one long well acquainted with him, were not the 
playthings of children, but the tools men work with, and he ap- 
peared to derive more pleasure from seeing the men in the neigh- 
borhood work, and asking them questions, than from any thing else. 
When not quite six years old, he was seen one day, much to the 
alarm of his friends, on the top of his father's barn, fixing up some- 
thing like a windmill. Not long after he attended some men fix- 
ing a pump at a neighboring village, and observing them cut 
off a piece of bored pipe, he was so lucky as to procure it, and 
actually made with it a working pump that raised water. In his 
fourteenth and fifteenth years, he made for himself an engine to 
turn rose-work, and presented his friends with boxes turned in 
ivory or \vood. At the age of eighteen he had acquired by the 
strength of his genius and indefatigable industry, an extensive set 
of tools, and the art of working in most of the mechanical trades, 
without the assistance of any master, and this with an expertness 
seldom surpassed. 

His father was an attorney, and intended to bring up his son to 
his own profession ; but the latter finding, to use his own words, 
" that the law did not suit the bent of his genius," obtained his 
parent ''s consent that he should seek a more congenial employment. 
Accordingly he came to London, where he established himself as 
a mathematical instrument maker, and soon became known to the 
scientific circles by several ingenious inventions ; among which 
were a new kind of magnetic compass, and a machine for measur- 
ing a ship''s way at sea. 

In 1753, he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and 
contributed several papers to their philosophical transactions. In 
the succeeding year he visited Holland, travelling mostly on foot 



220 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

and in passage-boats, to make himself master, with greater ease, 
of the mechanical contrivances of those countries. A few years 
after his return he was applied to, to rebuild the Eddystone light- 
house, a structure which has rendered his name so celebrated. To 
more fully illustrate the difficulties he had to surmount, we give in 
connection a brief history of the lighthouse. 

Eddystone lighthouse is erected on one of the rocks of that name, 
which lie in the English Channel about fourteen miles S.S.W. from 
Plymouth. The nearest land to the Eddystone rocks is the point 
to the west of Plymouth called the Ram Head, from which they 
are about ten miles almost directly south. As these rocks (called 
the Eddystone, in all probability, from the whirl or eddy which is 
occasioned by the waters striking against them) were not very 
much elevated above the sea at any time, and at high water were 
quite covered by it, they formed a most dangerous obstacle to nav- 
igation, and several vessels were every season lost upon them. 
Many a gallant ship which had voyaged in safety across the whole 
breadth of the Atlantic, was shattered to pieces on this hidden 
source of destruction as it was nearing port, and went down with 
its crew in sight of their native shores. It was therefore very de- 
sirable that the spot should, if possible, be pointed out by a warning 
light. But the same circumstances which made the Eddystone 
rocks so formidable to the mariner, rendered the attempt to erect 
a lighthouse upon them a peculiarly difficult enterprise. The task, 
however, was at last undertaken by a Mr. Henry Winstanley, of 
Littlebury in Essex, a gentleman of some property, and not a reg. 
ularly-bred engineer or architect, but only a person with a natural 
turn for mechanical invention, and fond of amusing himself with 
ingenius experiments, and withal was somewhat of an excentric 
character. In his house at Littlebury, a visiter would enter a room 
where he saw an old slipper on the floor ; he would kick away the 
slipper, and a figure with the appearance of a being from the other 
world would start up before him. He would sit down in a chair, 
and immediately a pair of arms would clasp him around the waist. 
He would go into an arbor in the garden, by the side of a canal, 
and straightway he would find himself afloat in the middle of that 
piece of water, without the power of getting ashore, until a per- 
son in the secret had moved certain machinery. Mr. Winstanley 
also contrived some ingenious water-works. 

The fabric erected by this amateur engineer, upon the Eddy, 
stone, was of timber, sixty feet high, and was four years in build- 
ing ; during which time the workmen suffered much from bad 
weather, and were once or twice taken off* in a state of starvation, 
after having been for weeks debarred all intercourse with the land. 



JOHN SMEATON. 221 

Finding that the waves often rose so high as to bury the lantern, 
Mr. Winstanley, in the fourth year, enlarged the base and added 
forty feet to the height ; and yet in violent weather the sea would 
seem to fly a hundred feet above the vane ; and it was generally 
said that a six-oared boat might have been directed on the top of 
a wave through the open gallery of the lighthouse. In Novem- 
ber, 1703, some repairs being required, Mr. Winstanley went 
down to Plymouth to superintend the performance of them. The 
general opinion was, that the building would not be of long dura- 
tion ; but the builder held diiFerent sentiments. As he was about 
to embark with his workmen, the danger was intimated to him in 
a friendly manner, and it was remarked that one day or other the 
lighthouse would certainly overset. To this he replied, that he 
was so well assured of its stability, "that he should only wish to he 
there in the greatest storm that ever hlew^ In this wish he was 
but too soon gratified ; for on the 26th of the month just men- 
tioned, while he was still superintending the repairs, there occurred 
one of the severest storms within the memory of the oldest inhabit- 
ants ; being the same which Defoe thought proper to chronicle in 
a volume under the title of " The Storm." When the people 
looked abroad the next morning, not a trace of the Eddystone 
lighthouse was to be seen. The whole fabric, with its ingenious 
architect, and many other persons, had perished. 

As if to show the necessity of instantly rebuilding it, the Win- 
chelsea, a homeward-bound Virginiaman, almost immediately 
after, struck upon the rock, and was lost, with most of the crew. 
It was not, however, till 1706, that a new work was commenced. 
The second Eddystone lighthouse was built as the private under- 
taking of a Captain Lovett. The immediate architect was Mr. 
John Rudyard, a linen draper, who, like Winstanley, seems to 
have had a taste for mechanical pursuits. The building was in 
the lower part constructed of alternate courses of granite and oak 
timber ; in the upper part, of timber alone : the whole being cased 
in timber very carefully jointed. The light-room was sixty-one 
feet above the rock, and the whole height to the ball at the top 
was ninety-two. The general form was circular, and there were 
no projections of any kind, in both of which respects it improved 
upon the former building, which was heavy cornered, with many 
superfluous ornaments. During the progress of the work, a 
French privateer took the men upon the lighthouse, together with 
their tools, and carried them to France, where the captain, it is 
said, expected a reward for his exploit. While the captives lay 
in prison, the transaction reached the ears of Louis XIV. who 
immediately ordered them to be released, and the captors to be 



222 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

put into their place ; declaring that though he was at war with 
England, he was not at war with mankind. He accordingly 
directed the men to be returned to their work with presents, as a 
compensation for the inconvenience which they had suffered 
The lighthouse was completed in 1709. 

From the simplicity of the figure of this building, and the judg- 
ment shown in its construction, it was considered likely, notwith- 
standing the nature of the materials, to have withstood the effects 
of the winds and waves for an unlimited period. It was doomed, 
however, to fall before an accident which had not been calculated 
upon. At two o'clock on the morning of the 2d of December, 
1755, one of the three men who had the charge of it, having gone 
up to snuff the candles in the lantern, found the place full of smoke, 
from the midst of which, as soon as he opened the door, a flame 
burst forth. A spark from some of the twenty-four candles, 
which were kept constantly burning, had probably ignited the 
wood-work, or the flakes of soot hanging from the roof The 
man instantly alarmed his companions ; but being in bed and 
asleep, it was some time before they arrived to his assistance. 
In the mean time he did his utmost to effect the extinction of the 
fire by heaving water up to it (it was burning four yards above 
him) from a tubful which always stood in the place. The other 
two, when they came, brought up more water from below ; but as 
they had to go down and return a height of seventy feet for this 
purpose, their endeavors were of little avail. At last a quantity 
of the lead on the roof having melted, came down in a torrent 
upon the head and shoulders of the man who remained above. 
He was an old man of ninety-four, of the name of Henry Hall, 
but still full of strength and activity. This accident, together 
with the rapid increase of the fire, notwithstanding their most 
desperate exertions, extinguished their last hopes ; and making 
scarcely any further efforts to arrest the progress of the destroy, 
ing element, they descended before it from room to room, till they 
came to the lowest floor. Driven from this also, they then sought 
refuge in a hole or cave on the eastern side of the rock, it being 
fortunately by this time low water. Meanwhile the conflagration 
had been observed by some fishermen, who immediately returned 
to the shore and gave information of it. Boats, of course, 
were immediately sent out. They arrived at the lighthouse 
about ten o'clock, and with the utmost difficulty a landing was 
effected, and the three men, who were by this time almost in 
a state of stupefaction, were dragged through the water into 
one of the boats. One of them, as soon as he was brought on 
shore, as if struck with some panic, took flight, and was never 



JOHN SMEATON. 223 

more heard of. As for old Hall, he was immediately placed under 
medical care ; but although he took his food tolerably well, and 
seemed for some time likely to recover, he always persisted in 
saying that the doctors would never bring him round, unless they 
could remove from his stomach the lead which he maintained had 
run down his throat when it fell upon him from the roof of the 
lantern. Nobody could believe that this notion was any thing 
more than an imagination of the old man ; but on the twelfth daj? 
after the fire, having been suddenly seized with cold sweats and 
spasms, he expii'ed ; and when his body was opened there was 
actually found in his stomach, to the coat of which it had partly 
adhered, a flat oval piece of lead of the weight of seven ounces 
five drams. An account of this extraordinary case is to be found 
in the 49th volume of the Philosophical Transactions. 

The proprietors, who by this time had become numerous, felt 
that it was not their interest to lose a moment in setting about 
the rebuilding of the lighthouse. One of them, a Mr. Weston, in 
whom the others placed much confidence, made application to 
Lord Macclesfield, the president of the Royal Society, to recom- 
mend to them the person whom he considei-ed most fit to be en- 
gaged. His lordship immediately named and most strongly 
recommended Mr. Smeaton. Once more, therefore, the Eddy- 
stone lighthouse was destined to have a self-educated architect for 
its builder. When it was first proposed that the work should be 
put into his hands, he was in Northumberland ; but he arrived in 
London on the 23d of February, 1756. On the 22d of March he 
set out for Plymouth, but, on account of the badness of the roads, 
did not reach the end of his journey till the 27th. He remained 
at Plymouth till the 21st of May, in the course of which time he 
repeatedly visited the rock, and having, with the consent of his 
employers, determined that the new lighthouse should be of stone, 
hired workyards and workmen, contracted for the various mate- 
rials he wanted, and made all the necessary arrangements for 
beginning and carrying on the work. Every thing being in readi- 
ness, and the season sufficiently advanced, on the fifth of August 
the men were landed on the rock, and immediately began cutting 
it for the foundation of the building. This part of the work was 
all that was accomplished that season, in the course of which, 
however, both the exertions and the perils of the architect and his 
associates were very great. On one occasion the sloop in which 
Mr. Smeaton was, with eighteen seamen and laborers, was all 
but lost in returning from the work. 

Ddring this time the belief and expressed opinion of all sorts of 
persons was that a stone lighthouse would certainly not stand the 



224 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

winds and seas to which it would be exposed on the Eddystone 
However, on the 12th of June, 1757, the first stone was laid. 

From this period the work proceeded with great rapidity. On 
the 26th of August, 1759, all the stonework was completed. On 
the 9th of October following the building was finished in every 
part ; and on the 16th of the same month the saving light was 
again streaming from its summit over the waves. Thus the whole 
undertaking was accomplished within a space of little more than 
three years, " without the loss of life or limb," says Mr. Smeaton, 
" to any one concerned in it, or accident by which the work could 
be said to be materially retarded. During all this time there had 
been only four hundred and twenty-one days, comprising two 
thousand six hundred and seventy-four houi's, which it had been 
possible for the men to spend upon the rock ; and the whole time 
which they had been at work there was only one hundred and 
eleven days ten hours, or scarcely sixteen weeks. Nothing can 
show more strikingly than this statement the extraordinary diffi- 
culties under which the work had to be carried on. 

Smeaton spent much time in considering the best method of 
grafting his work securely on the solid rock, and giving it the 
form best suited to secure stability ; and one of the most interest, 
ing parts of his interesting account is, that in which he narrates 
how he was led to choose the shape which he adopted, by con- 
sidering the means employed by nature to produce stability in her 
works. The building is modelled on the trunk of an oak, which 
spreads out in a sweeping curve near the roots, so as to give 
breadth and strength to its base, diminishes as it rises, and again 
swells out as it approaches to the bushy head, to give room for 
the strong insertion of the principal boughs. The latter is repre- 
sented by a curved cornice, the effect of which is to throw off the 
heavy seas, which being suddenly checked, fly up, it is said, from 
fifty to one hundred feet above the very top of the building, and 
thus are prevented from striking the lantern, even when they 
seem entirely to enclose it. 

To prepare a fit base for the reception of the column, the 
shelving rock was cut into six steps, which were filled up with 
masonry, firmly dovetailed and pinned with oaken trenails to the 
living stone, so that the upper course presented a level circular 
surface. The building is faced with Cornish granite, called in 
the country, moorstone ; a material selected on account of its 
durability and hardness, which bids defiance to the depredations 
' of marine animals, which have been known to do serious injury, 
by perforating Portland stone when placed under water. The 
interior is built of Portland stone, which is more easily obtained 



JOHN SMEATON. 



225 



in large blocks, and is less expensive in the working. It is an 
instructive lesson not only to the young engineer, but to all per- 
sons, to see the diligence which Smeaton used to ascertain what 
kind of st:)ne was best fitted to his purposes, and from what ma . 
terials thj firmest and most lasting cement could be obtained. 
He well knew that in novel and great undertakings no precaution 
can be deemed superfluous which inay contribute to success ; and 
that it is wrong to trust implicitly to common methods, even when 
experience has shown them to be sufficient in common cases. 
For the height of twelve feet from the rock the building is solid. 
Every course of masonry is composed of stones firmly jointed and 
dovetailed into each other, and secured to the course below by 
joggles, or solid plugs of stone, which being let into both, efFectu- 
ally resist the lateral pressure of the waves, which tend to push 
off the upper from the under course. 




[Horizontal Section of the lower and solid part of the Eddystone Lighthouse ; showing the 
mode in which the courses of stone are doi;etoiZe(Z together.] 

The interior, which is accessible by a moveable ladder, consists 
of four rooms, one above the other, surmounted by a glass lantern, 
in which the lights are placed. The height from the lowest point 
of the foundation to the floor of the lantern is seventy feet ; the 
height of the lantern is twenty-one feet more. The building has 
braved, uninjured, the storms of eighty winters, and is likely long 
to remain a monument almost as elegant, and far more useful 
than the most splendid column ever raised to commemorate impe- 
rial victories. Its erection forms an era in the history of light- 
houses, a subject of great importance to a maritime nation. It 
came perfect from the mind of the artist, and has left nothing to 
be added or improved. After such an example, no rock can bo 

10* 



226 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

considered impracticable : and in the more recent erection of a 
lighthouse on the dangerous Bell-rock, lying off the coast of For- 
farshire, Scotland, which is built exactly on the same model, we 
see the best proof of the value of an impulse, such as was given 
to this subject by Smeaton. 

Among many other tempests which this structure has endured 
unshaken, was one of extraordinary fury, which occurred in the 
beginning of the "year 1762. One individual, who was fond of 
predicting its fate, declared on that occasion, " that if it stood then, 
it would stand until the day of judgment!'''' On the morning after 
the storm had spent its chief fury, many anxious observers pointed 
their glasses to the spot, where they scarcely expected ever to dis- 
cern it, and a feeling almost of wonder, mixed itself with the joy, 
thankfulness, and pride of the architect's friends, as they with dif- 
ficulty descried its form through the still dark and troubled air. It 
was uninjured even to a pane of glass in the lantern. In a letter 
from Plymouth, written upon this occasion, the writer says : — " It 
is now my most steady belief, as well as everybody's here, that its 
inhabitants are rather more secure in a storm, under the united 
force of wind and watei', than we are in our houses from the former 
only." 

According to the account published by Mr. Smeaton, the light- 
house was attended by three men, who each received a salary of 
twenty-five pounds a year, with an occasional absence in the sum- 
mer. At an earlier period there had been only two who had 
watched alternately four hours ; but one being taken ill and dying, 
the necessity of a third hand became apparent. On the death of 
his companion, the survivor found himself in an awkward predica- 
ment. Being apprehensive if he tumbled the body into the sea, 
which was the only method he had of disposing of it, he might be 
charged with murder, he was induced for some time to let the dead 
body lie, in hopes that the boat might come and relieve him from 
his embarrassment. A month elapsed before the boat could land, 
and by that time he was in a state of distress beyond all descrip- 
tion, in consequence of the decay of the corpse, which for some 
time had been in such a state that he could not remove it, how- 
ever anxious to do so. A less painful result of the employment of 
only two men is related. On some pique arising between them 
they forebore to speak to each other, and incredible as it may ap- 
pear, spent a month together in this wild solitude, without exchang- 
ing a word. Another anecdote of the lighthouse may be related. 
A man who had been a shoemaker being employed to go out as 
one of the keepers, was on his way to the rock, when the master 
of the yacht said to him, " How happens it, friend Jacob, that you 




EDDYSTONB LIGHTHOUSE IN A STORM. 



JOHN SMEATON, 229 

should choose to become a light-keeper, at scarce ten shillings a 
week, when, as I am told, you can earn half-a-crown and three 
shillings a day in making leather hose ?" " Why," answered the 
craftsman, " I go to be a hght-keeper, because I don't like confine- 
ment!'''' This answer producing a little merriment, he explained 
himself that he did not like to be confined to work. 

Smeaton's wonderful success in this undertaking estabUshed his 
reputation, and his after labors are connected with almost every 
great work of his time. It would be in vain, however, to enumer- 
ate all the projects in which he was consulted, or the schemes 
which he executed. 

The variety and extent of his employments may be best estima- 
ted from his Reports, which fill three quarto volumes, and consti- 
tute a most interesting and valuable series of treatises on every 
branch of engineering : as draining, bridge-building, making and 
improving canals and navigable rivers, planning docks and harbors, 
the improvement of mill- work, and the application of mechanical 
improvements to different manufactures. They contain descrip- 
tions of his inventions, together with a treatise on mill- work, and 
some papers which show that he was fond of astronomy and prac- 
tically skilled in it. 

His health began to dechne about 1785, and he endeavored to 
withdraw from business, and devote his attention to publishing an 
account of his inventions and works ; for, as he often said, ^' he 
thought he could not render so much service to his country as by 
doing that." He succeeded in bringing out his elaborate account 
of the Eddystone lighthouse, published in 1791 . But he found it im- 
possible to withdraw entirely from business ; and it appears that over- 
exertion and anxiety did actually bi-ing on an attack of paralysis 
to which his family was constitutionally liable. He was taken ill 
at his residence at Austhorpe, in September, 1792, and died Octo- 
ber 28th, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He had long looked 
to this disease as the probable termination of his life, and felt some 
anxiety concerning the likelihood of outliving his faculties, and in 
his own words of " lingering over the dregs after the spirit had 
evaporated." This calamity was spared him : in the interval be- 
tween his first attack and death his mind was unclouded, and he 
continued to take his usual interest in the occupations of the do- 
mestic circle. Sometimes only, he would complain with a smile 
of his slowness of apprehension, and say, " It cannot be otherwise : 
the shadow must lengthen as the sun goes down." 

His character was marked by undeviating uprightness, industry, 
and moderation in the pursuit of riches. His gains might have 
been far larger, but he relinquished more than one appointment 



230 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

which brought in a considerable income, to devote his attention to 
other objects which he had more at heart ; and he decUned mag- 
nificent offers from Catherine II. of Russia, who would have bought 
his services at any price. His industry was unwearied, and the 
distribution of his hours and employments strictly laid down by 
rule. In his family and by his friends he was singularly beloved, 
though his demeanor sometimes appeared harsh to strangers. A 
brief, but very interesting and affectionate account of hirri, written 
by his daughter, is prefixed to his Reports, from which many of 
the anecdotes here related have been derived. 

The rule of his practice, and one which he adhered to with the 
most undeviating firmness, was never to trust to deductions drawn 
from a theory in cases where he could have any opportunity of a 
trial. As he got older, he used to say, " Care not about any the- 
ory at all. A man of experience does not require it. In my 
intercourse with mankind, I have always found those who would 
thrust theory into practical matters, at bottom to he men of no judg. 
ment and pure quacks. In my own practice, almost every succes- 
sive case would have requu'ed an independent theory of its own ; 
theory and quackery go hand in hand." 

Smeaton appeared to Playfair as a man of excellent understand, 
ing, improved more by very extensive experience and observation, 
than by learning or education. He had much the appearance of 
an honest and worthy man ; his manners not much polished ; his 
conversation most instructive in any thing relating to mechanics, 
or the business of an engineer ; but in conversation the embar 
rassment of his language was very great. 



EDWARD SOMERSET, 

MARQUIS OF WORCESTER, 
INVENTOE OF THE STEABI ENGINE. 

Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester, was born at Ragland 
Castle, near Monmouth, about the year 1597. Very little is pre- 
served respecting the history of this ingenious nobleman, and our 
notice must be therefore necessarily brief During the civil war 
between Charles the First and the parliament, Worcester, being 
then a young man, espoused the cause of his king, and afler the 




WORCESTER, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM ENGINE. 



WORCESTER. 233 

surprise and capture of Monmouth by the parliamentary army, at 
the head of a small party of volunteers, he scaled a redoubt, passed 
the ditch, put the guard to death, dashed sword in hand into the 
place, retook it, and made the garrison prisoners. This brave and 
daring achievement established his reputation for courage and 
enterprise. 

A short time after he was sent into Ireland, to negotiate for 
bringing over a large body of Irish to the royal cause, but not 
succeeding, his conduct was artfully misrepresented by those en- 
vious of his fame. Popular feeling thus setting against him, 
Worcester considered it prudent to seek safety from its virulence 
by coming over to France. To fill up the cup of his misfortunes, 
Ragland Castle, the home of his childhood, was besieged ; and 
after being defended by his father with the courage of an old 
Roman, it surrendered at last upon honorable conditions ; these 
however were perfidiously broken, and the venerable old man 
survived the catastrophe but a few months. The ruin of the 
family now seemed complete, the seat of its splendor was destroyed, 
its majestic woods were consigned to the axe, its domain alienated, 
and its chief an exile. 

During the ascendancy of parliament Worcester resided abroad. 
When again in an unfortunate hour accepting a commission from 
the heir to the throne, (afterwards Charles II.,) he proceeded to 
London for the purpose of procuring private intelligence and sup. 
plies of money, of which his master stood in the greatest need. 
He was, however, speedily discovered and committed a close pri- 
soner to the Tower, where he remained in captivity several years. 
While in confinement, his time was beguiled by those mechanical 
amusements which ever formed his greatest source of happiness. 
Here, according to tradition, his attention was first drawn to^the 
amazing force of steam, by observing the rising of the lid of a 
vessel employed in cooking in his chamber, and from this circum- 
stance he projected that wonderful machine which has thrown 
around his name so bright a radiance. 

The return of the king from France, and his ascendancy to the 
throne ; gave Worcester once more a home, but now in his old 
age he was doomed to feel all the miseries of hope deferred. The 
ear of the king was closed by the intrigues of enemies, or by in- 
gratitude ; and the man who had spent the fortune of a prince in 
the cause, was left, in its final triumph, nearly in a state of poverty, 
oppressed with debt and without resources. On his enlargement 
from prison, neither the ruin of his own fortune nor the increasing 
infirmities of age had any effect in damping the ardor of his en- 
thusiasm, — when other minds would have sunk under the neglect 



2<J4 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

and distress of his situation, his appeared to grow more elastic as 
trouble increased. 

In the year 1655, Worcester wrote his famous Century (hundred) 
of Inventions. This work contained but little more than a mere 
definition of what the inventions were destined to perform. His 
object in committing them to writing appears to have been for the 
purpose of reference, when he should be in a situation to carry 
them out ; hence the descriptions, although well enough for his own 
purpose, are in general too indefinite for comprehension. The 
novelty of the greater number of the hundred propositions or de- 
scriptions of which this volume consists, and the wonderful nature 
of others, cast an air of improbabiUty over the whole : the author 
was charged with describing many things which he wished were 
invented, rather than machines which he had actually constructed. 
But these charges are scarcely worth noticing, as they are brought 
by literary men, who from their pursuits are incapable of judging 
of the feasibility of mechanical projects. Yet this collection of 
descriptions bears internal marks of being in many cases what it 
professes, drawn up from actual trials of machines in existence. On 
an attentive examination of the general scope of his inventions, the 
greater number will appear to have been suggested by the wants 
of his accidental situation, and a small portion by those of his 
station. To a statesman employed in highly confidential negotia- 
tions, the secrecy of his correspondence would be of the greatest 
importance, — ^to a traveller the security of his locks,— a soldier is 
mainly interested in his arms, at times in scaling a fortification, or 
transmitting intelligence in the dark, — and the projector of a water 
company could not fail of laying his ingenuity under contribution 
in devising a mode of raising water above its own level. These 
classes comprises the greater part of his inventions, and if he did 
not carry them all into execution, it does not seem to have been so 
much his fault, as that of the age in which he lived ; but the doubt 
is greatly lessened by considering his perseverance and his means. 
For thirty-five years he employed an ingenious mechanic under 
his own eye, whose time was doubtless spent on the inventions 
described in the Century. In the machine for raising water by 
steam, it would be almost impossible to describe effects so clearly 
as he has done, without actually looking at a machine in operation. 
His description (although veiy obscure) is contained in the sixty- 
eighth proposition, in connection with the ninty-ninth and one hun- 
dredth of the " Century," and evidently proves that to him belongs 
the honor of inventing ihe first steam engine. 

A few years before his death he succeeded in procuring an act 
of parliament to be passed enabling himself and heirs, for ninety 




JAMES FERGUSON. 



JAMES FERGUSON. 237 

years thereafter, to receive the sole benefit, profit, and advantage 
resulting from the use of this machine. ' But this was of httle avail, 
for like men of a similar genius in more humble hfe, he was op- 
pressed by poverty and want of encouragement ; and the desire of 
being useful to his country in the way which his experience pointed 
out as of all others the most efiective, gained strength as his offers 
of semce were rejected. Although at every period of life he 
soems to have been deeply impressed with the feeling that progress 
was never made in any thing by supine wishes and dilatory efforts, 
unremitting perseverance were in his case to be of no use in stem- 
ming the tide of adverse fortune. His wishes were written in 
sand; and in the prosecution of philanthropic projects, he was 
fated not only -to experience the neglect of the public, but the in- 
gratitude of friends, without being convinced of the hopelessness 
of the attempt at introducing improvements beyond the compre- 
hension and spirit of the age. As long as hope survived, and that 
ceased not until he " was summoned by the angel of death," he 
continued to prefer with vigor his claims to public attention and 
patronage. 

Worcester died in poverty, on the 4th of April, 1667. - After 
his death, his wife, in endeavoring to introduce the " water com- 
manding (steam) engine" into general use, not only lay under the 
imputation of " insanity" for thus persisting in carrying it forward, 
but was expostulated with by a Romish priest as being " instigated 
hy the devil!'''' 

From a manuscript volume containing the travels of Cosmo de 
Medicis, grand duke of Tuscany, first printed in 1818, it appears 
that about thirty years after the death of Worcester, he actually 
saw his steam engine in use pumping up water in London. 



JAMES FERGUSON. 

Among self-educated men, there are few who claim more of our 
admiration than the celebrated James Ferguson. If ever any 
one was literally his own instructor in the very elements of know- 
ledge, it was he. Acquisitions that have scarcely in any other 
case, and probably never by one so young, been made without 
the assistance either of books or a living teacher, were the dis- 
coveries of his solitary and almost illiterate boyhood. There are 
few more interesting narratives in any language than the account 



238 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

which Ferguson himself has given of his early history. He was 
born in the year 1710, a few miles from the village of Keith, in 
Banffshire ; his parents, as he tells us, being in the humblest con- 
dition of life, (for his father was merely a day-laborer,) but reli- 
gious and honest. It was his father's practice to teach his chil- 
dren himself to read and write, as they successively reached what 
he deemed the proper age ; but James was too impatient to wait 
till his regular turn came. While his father was teaching one 
of his elder brothers, James was secretly occupied in listening to 
what was going on ; and, as soon as he was left alone, used 
to get hold of the book, and work hard in endeavoring to master 
the lesson which he had thus heard gone over. Being ashamed, 
as he says, to let his father know what he was about, he was wont 
to apply to an old woman who lived in a neighboring cottage to 
solve his difficulties. In this way he actually learned to read 
tolerably well before his father had any suspicion that he knew his 
letters. His father at last, very much to his surprise, detected 
him one day reading by himself, and thus found out his secret. 

When he was about seven or eight years of age, a simple inci- 
dent occurred which seems to have given his mind its first bias to 
what became afterwards its favorite kind of pursuit — viz. me- 
chanics. The roof of the cottage having partly fallen in, his 
father, in order to raise it again, applied to it a beam, resting on 
a prop in the manner of a lever, and was thus enabled, with com- 
parative ease, to produce what seemed to his son quite a stupen- 
dous effect. The circumstance set our young philosopher think- 
ing ; and after a while it struck him that his father, in using the 
beam, had applied his strength to its extremity, and this, he imme- 
diately concluded, was probably an important circumstance in the 
matter. He proceeded to verify his notion by experiment ; and 
having made several levers, which he called bars, soon not only 
found that he was right in his conjecture as to the importance of 
applying the moving force at the point most distant from the ful- 
crum, but discovered the rule or law of the machine, namely, that 
the effect of any form or weight made to bear upon it is always 
exactly proportioned to the distance of the point on which it rests 
from the fulcrum. " I then," says he, " thought that it was a 
great pity that, by means of this bar, a weight could be raised but 
a very little way. On this I soon imagined that, by pulling round a 
wheel, the weight might be raised to any height, by tying a rope to 
the weight, and winding the rope round the axle of the wheel, and 
that the power gained must be just as great as the wheel was 
broader than the axle was thick ; and found it to be exactly so. 
by hanging one weight to a rope put round the wheel, and ano 



JAMES FERGUSON. 239 

ther to the rope that coiled round the axle." The child had thus, 
it will be observed, actually discovered two of the most important 
elementary truths in mechanics — the lever, and ,^he wheel and 
axle ; he afterwards hit upon others ; and, all the while, he had 
not only possessed neither book nor teacher to assist him, but was 
without any other tools than a simple turning lathe of his father's, 
and a little knife wherewith to fashion his blocks and wheels, and 
.he other contrivances he needed for his experiments. After 
having made his discoveries, however, he next, he tells us, pro- 
ceeded to write an account of them ; thinking this little work, 
which contained sketches of the different machines drawn with a 
pen, to be the first treatise ever composed of the sort. When, 
some time after, a gentleman showed him the whole in a printed 
book, although he found that he had been anticipated in his inven- 
tions, he was much pleased, as he was well entitled to be, on 
thus perceiving that his unaided genius had already carried him 
so far into what was acknowledged to be the region of true 
philosophy. 

He spent some of his early years as a keeper of sheep, in the 
employment of a small farmer in the neighborhood of his native 
place. He was sent to this occupation, he tells us, as being of 
weak body ; and while his flock was feeding around him, he used 
to busy himself in making models of mills, spinning-wheels, &c., 
during the day, and in studying the stars at night, like his prede- 
cessors of Chaldea. When a little older, he went into the service 
of another farmer, a respectable man called James Glashan, whose 
name well deserves to be remembered. After the labors of the^ 
day, young Ferguson used to go at night to the fields, with a 
blanket about him and a lighted candle, and there, laying himself 
down on his back, pursued for long hours his observations on the 
heavenly bodies. " lused to stretch," says he, " a thread, with 
small beads on it, at arms' length, between my eye and the stars ; 
sliding the beads upon it, till they hid such and such stars from 
my eye, in order to take their apparent distances from one ano- 
ther ; and then laying the thread down on a paper, I marked the 
stars thereon by the beads." "My master," he adds, ''at first 
laughed at me ; but when I explained my meaning to him, he en- 
couraged me to go on ; and, that I might make fair copies in the 
daytime of what I had done in the night, he often worked for me 
himself. I shall always have a respect for the memory of that 
man." Having been employed by his master to carry a message 
to Mr. Gilchrist, the minister of Keith, he took with him the draw- 
ings he had been making, and showed them to that gentleman. 
Mr. Gilchrist upon this put a map into his hands, and having sup- 

11 



240 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

plied him with compasses, ruler, pens, ink, and paper, desired him 
to take it home with him, and bring back a copy of it. " For this 
pleasant employment," says he, " my master gave me more time 
than I could reasonably expect ; and often took the threshing-flail 
out of my hands, and worked himself, while I sat by him in the 
barn, busy with my compasses, ruler, and pen." This is a beau- 
tiful, we may well say, and even a touching picture — the good 
man so generously appreciating the worth of knowledge and 
genius, that, although the master, he voluntarily exchanges situa- 
tions with his servant, and insists upon doing the work that must 
be done, himself, in order that the latter may give his more pre- 
cious talents to the more appropriate vocation. We know not 
that there is on record an act of homage to science and learning 
more honorable to the author. 

Having finished his map, Ferguson carried it to Mr. Gilchrist's, 
and there he met Mr. Grant of Achoynamey, who offered to take 
him into the house, and make his butler give him lessons. " I told 
Squire Grant," says he, " that I should rejoice to be at his house, 
as soon as the time was expired for which I was engaged with my 
present master. He very politely offered to put one in my place, 
but this I declined." When the period in question arrived, ac- 
cordingly, he went to Mr. Grant's, being now in his twentieth 
year. Here he found both a good friend and a very extraordinary 
man, in Cantley the butler, who had first fixed his attention by a 
sun-dial which he happened to be engaged in painting on the 
village school-house, as Ferguson was passing along the road on 
his second visit to Mr. Gilchrist. Dialling, however, was only 
one of the many accomplishments of this learned butler, who, Fer- 
guson assures us, was profoundly conversant both with arithmetic 
and mathematics, played on every known musical instrument ex- 
cept the harp, understood Latin, French, and Greek, and could 
let blood and prescribe for diseases. These multifarious attain, 
ments he owed, we are told, entirely to himself and to nature ; 
on which account Ferguson designates him " God Almighty's 
scholar." 

From this person Ferguson received instructions in Decimal 
Fractions and Algebra, having already made himself master of 
Vulgar Arithmetic by the assistance of books. Just as he was 
about, however, to begin Geometry, Cantley left his place for 
another in the establishment of the Earl of Fife, and his pupil 
thereupon determined to return home to his father. 

Cantley, on parting with him, had made him a present of a copy 
of Gordon's Geographical Grammar. The book contains a de- 
scription of an artificial globe, which is not, however, illustrated 



JAMES FERGUSON. 241 

by any figure. Nevertheless, " from this description," says Fer- 
guson, " I made a globe in three weeks at my father ''s, having 
turned the ball thereof out of a piece of wood ; which ball I covered 
with paper, and delineated a map of the world upon it ; made the 
meridian ring and horizon of wood, covered them with paper, and 
graduated them ; and was happy to find that by my globe (which 
was the first I ever saw) I could solve the problems." 

For some time after this, he was very unfortunate. Finding 
that it would not do to remain idle at home, he engaged in the ser- 
vice of a miller in the neighborhood, who, feehng probably that he 
could trust to the honesty and capacity of his servant, soon began 
to spend all his own time in the alehouse, and to leave poor Fer- 
guson at home, not only with every thing to do, but with very fre- 
quently nothing to eat. A little oatmeal, mixed with cold water, 
was often, he tells us, all he was allowed. Yet in this situation he 
remained a year, and then returned to his father''s, very much the 
weaker for his fasting. His next master was a Dr. Young, who 
having induced him to enter his service by a promise to instruct 
him in medicine, not only broke his engagement as to this point, 
but used him in other respects so tyrannically, that, although enga- 
ged for half a year, he found he could not Teraain beyond the first 
quarter, at the expiration of which, accordingly, he came away with- 
out receiving any wages, having " wrought the last fortnight," sayg 
he, " as much as possible with one hand and arm, when I could not 
lift the other from my side." This was in consequence of a se- 
vere hurt he had received, which the doctor was too busy to look 
to, and by which he was confined to his bed for two months after 
his return home. 

Reduced as he was, however, by exhaustion and actual pain, he 
could not be idle. " In order," says he, " to amuse myself in this 
low state, I made a wooden clock, the frame of which was also of 
wood, and it kept time pretty well. The bell on which the ham- 
mer struck the hours was the neck of a broken bottle." A short 
time after this, when he had recovered his health, he gave a still 
more extraordinary proof of his ingenuity, and the fertility of his 
resources for mechanical invention, by actually constructing a time- 
piece or watch, moved by a spring. But we must allow him to 
give the history of this matter in his own words. 

" Having then," he says, " no idea how any time-piece could go 
but by weight and line, I wondered how a watch could go in all 
positions ; and was sorry that I had never thought of asking Mr. 
Cantley, who could very easily have informed me. But happening 
one day to see a gentleman ride by my father^s house, (which was 
close by a public road,) I asked him what o'clock it then was 1 He 

17* 



242 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

looked at his watch and told me. As he did that with so much 
good-nature, I begged of him to show me the inside of his watch ; 
and though he was an entire stranger, he immediately opened the 
watch, and put it into my hands. I saw the spring box, with part 
of the chain round it ; and asked him what it was that made the 
box turn round 1 He told me that it was turned round by a steel 
spring within it. Having then never seen any other spring than that 
of my father^s gun-lock, I asked how a spring within a box could 
turn the box so often round as to wind all the chain upon it ? He 
answered, that the spring was long and thin ; that one end of it 
was fastened to the axis of the box, and the other end to the inside 
of the box ; that the axis was fixed, and the box was loose upon it. 
I told him that I did not yet thoroughly understand the matter. 
' Well, my lad,' says he, ' take a long, thin piece of whalebone ; 
hold one end of it fast between your finger and thumb, and wind 
it round your finger; it will then endeavor to unwind itself; and 
if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and 
leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round and round, and wind 
up a thread tied to the outside of the hoop. I thanked the gentle- 
man, and told him that I understood the thing very well. I then 
tried to make a watch with wooden wheels, and made the spring 
of whalebone ; but found that I could not make the wheel go when 
the balance was put on, because the teeth of the wheels were ra- 
ther too weak to bear the force of a spring sufficient to move the 
balance ; although the wheels would run fast enough when the bal- 
ance was taken off. I enclosed the whole in a wooden case, very 
little bigger than a breakfast teacup ; but a clumsy neighbor one 
day looking at my watch, happened to let it fall, and turning hasti- 
ly about to pick it up, set his foot upon it, and crushed it all to 
pieces ; which so provoked my father, that he was almost ready 
to beat the man, and discouraged me so much that I never attempt- 
ed to make such another machine again, especially as I was tho- 
roughly convinced that I could never make one that would be of 
any real use." 

What a vivid picture is this of an ingenious mind thirsting for 
knowledge ! and who is there, too, that does not envy the pleasure 
that must have been felt by the courteous and intelligent stranger 
by whom the young mechanician was carried over his first great 
difficulty, if he ever chanced to learn how greatly his unknown 
questioner had profited from their brief interview ! That stranger 
might probably have read the above narrative, as given to the world 
by Ferguson, after the talents which this little incident probably 
contributed to develop, had raised him from his obscurity to a distin- 
guished place among the philosophers of his age ; and if he did 



JAMES FERGUSON. 243 

know this, he must have felt that encouragement in well-doing which 
a benevolent man may always gather, either from the positive 
effects of acts of kindness upon others, or their influence upon his 
own heart. Civility, charity, generosity, may sometimes meet an 
ill return, but one person must be benefited by their exercise ; the 
kind heart has its own abundant reward, whatever be the gratitude 
of others. The case of Ferguson shows that the seed does not 
always faU on stony ground. It may appear somewhat absurd 
to dwell upon the benefit of a slight civility which cost, at most, 
but a few minutes of attention ; but it is really important that those 
who are easy in the world — who have all the advantages of wealth 
and knowledge at their command — should feel of how much value 
is the slightest encouragement and assistance to those who are toil- 
ing up the steep of emulation. Too often " the scoff of pride" is 
superadded to the " bar of poverty ;" and thus it is that many a one 
of the best talents and the most generous feelings 

" Has sunk into the grave unpitied and unknown," 

because the wealthy and powerful have never understood the value 
of a helping- hand to him who is struggling with fortune. 

Ferguson's attention having been thus turned to the mechanism 
of time-pieces, he now began to do a little business in the neigh- 
borhood as a cleaner of clocks, by which he made some money. 
He was invited also to take up his residence in the house of Sir 
James Dunbar, of Dum, to whom he seems to have made himself 
useful by various little services for which his ingenuity fitted him. 
Among other things he converted two round stones upon the gate- 
way, into a pair of stationaiy globes, by painting a map of the 
earth upon one, and a map of the heavens upon the other. " The 
poles of the painted globes," he informs us, " stood towards the 
poles of the heavens ; on each the twenty.four hours were placed 
around the equinoctial, so as to show the time of the day when the 
sun shone out, by the boundary where the half of the globe at any 
time enlightened by the sun was parted from the other half in the 
shade ; the enlightened parts of the terrestrial globe answering to 
the hke enlightened parts of the earth at all times. So that, when- 
ever the sun shone on the globe, one might see to what places the 
sun was then rising, to what places it was setting, and all the places 
where it was then day or night throughout the earth." Having 
been introduced to Sir James's sister, Lady Dipple, he was induced 
at her suggestion to attempt the drawing of patterns for ladies' 
dresses, in which he soon became quite an adept. " On this," says 
he, " I was sent for by other ladies in the country, and began to 
think myself growing very rich by the money I got by such draw- 



244 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

ings ; out of which I had the pleasure of occasionally supplying 
the wants of my poor father." He still continued, however, his 
astronomical studies, making observations on the stars, as usual, 
with his beaded threads, and delineating on paper the apparent 
paths of the planets as thus ascertained. So excited would he be- 
come while thus engaged, that he often conceived, he says, that he 
saw the ecliptic lying like a broad highway across the firmament, 
and the planets making their way in " paths like the narrow ruts 
inade by cart wheels, sometimes on one side of a plane road, and 
sometimes on the other, crossing the road at small angles, but never 
going far from either side of it." 

He now began also to copy pictures and prints with pen and 
ink ; and having gone to reside with Mr. Baird, of Auchmeddan, 
Lady Dipple's son-in-law, where he enjoyed access to a tolerably 
well -stocked library, he made his first attempt at taking likenesses 
from the hfe, in a portrait which he drew of that gentleman ; 
" and I found," says he, " it was much easier to draw from the 
life than from any picture whatever, as nature was more striking 
than any imitation of it." His success in this new profession 
struck his country patrons as so remarkable, that they determined 
upon carrying him to Edinburgh, in order that he might be regu- 
larly instructed in those parts of the art of which he was still 
ignorant, lady Dipple libei-ally agreeing to allow him to live in her 
house for two years. But when he came to that city he could find 
no painter who would consent to take him as an apprentice without 
a premium — a circumstance which his sanguine friends had not 
counted upon. In this extremity, not knowing what to do, he was 
advised, by the Reverend Dr. Keith, to trust to his own genius, 
and to commence the practice of his intended profession without 
waiting for any other instruction than what he had already received 
from nature. It was certainly a bold counsel ; but Ferguson, 
having in truth no other resource, followed it, and succeeded be- 
yond his most sanguine expectations, in a very short time making 
so much money as to enable him not only to defray his own ex- 
penses, but to gratify his kind heart by contributing largely to the 
support of his now aged parents. He followed this business for 
twenty-six years. 

Yet he does not appear to have ever given his heart to painting, 
and notwithstanding his success, he even made various attempts to 
escape from it as a profession altogether. When he had been 
only about two years in Edinburgh, he was seized with so violent 
a passion for the study, or at least the practice, of medicine, that 
he actually returned to his father''s, carrying with him a quantity 
of pills, plasters, and other preparations, with the intention of setting 



JAMES FERGUSON. 245 

up as the jEsculapius of the village. But it would not do. Of 
those who took his medicines very few paid him for them, and 
still fewer, he acknowledges, were benefited by them. So he ap- 
phed again to his pencil ; but, instead of returning immediately to 
Edinburgh, fixed his residence for a few months at Inverness. 
Here he employed his leisure in pursuing his old and favorite 
study of astronomy ; and having discovered by himself the cause 
of eclipses, drew up a scheme for showing the motions and places 
of the sun and moon in the ecliptic, on each day of the year, per- 
petually. This he transmitted to the celebrated Maclaurin, who 
found it to be very nearly correct, and was so much pleased with 
it, that he had it engraved. It sold very well, and Ferguson was 
induced once more to return to Edinburgh. He had now a zealous 
patron in Maclaurin, and one extremely disposed to assist him in 
his philosophical studies. One day Ferguson having asked the 
Professor to show him his Orrery, the latter immediately complied 
vidth his request, in so far as to exhibit to him the outward move- 
ments of the machine, but would not venture to open it in order 
to get at the wheelwork, which he had never himself inspected, 
being afraid that he should not be able to put it to rights again if 
he should chance to displace any part of it. Ferguson, however, 
had seen enough to set his ingenious and contriving mind to work ; 
and in a short time he succeeded in finishing an Orrery of his own, 
and had the honour of reading a lecture on it to Maclaurin's pupils. 
He some time after made another of ivory, (his first had been of 
wood ;) and in the course of his hfe he constructed, he tells us, six 
more, all unlike each other. 

His mind was now becoming evexy day more attached to phi- 
losophical pursuits ; and quite tired, as he says, of drawing pic- 
tures, in which he never strove to excel, he resolved to go to 
London, in the hope of finding employment as a teacher of me- 
chanics and astronomy. Having written out a proof of a new 
astronomical truth which had occured to him, namely, that the 
moon must move always in a path concave to the sun, he showed 
his proposition and its demonstration to Mr. Folks, the President 
of the Royal Society, who thereupon took him the same evening 
t:; the meeting of that learned body. This had the effect of bring- 
ing him immediately into notice. He soon after published his first 
work, " A Dissertation on the Phenomena of the Harvest Moon," 
with the description of a new Orreiy, having only four wheels. 
Of this work he says, with his characteristic modesty, " Having 
never had a grammatical education, nor time to study the rules of 
just composition, I acknowledge that I was afraid to put it to the 
press ; and for the same cause, I ought to have the same fears 



246 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

still." It was, however, well received by the public ; and its in- 
genious author afterwards followed it up by various other produc- 
tions, most of which became very popular. In 1748 he began to 
give public lectures on his favorite subjects, which were numerously 
and fashionably attended, his late Majesty George III., who was 
then a boy, being occasionally among his auditors. He had till 
now continued to work at his old profession of a portrait painter ; 
but about this time he at last bade it a final farewell, having secured 
another, and, in his estimation, a much more agreeable means of 
providing a subsistence for himself and his family. Soon after the 
accession of George III., a pension of fifty pounds per annum was 
bestowed upon him from the privy purse. In 1763 he was elected 
a Fellow of the Royal Society ; the usual fees being remitted, as 
had been done in the cases of Newton and Thomas Simpson. He 
died in 1776, having for many years enjoyed a distinguished repu- 
tation both at home and abroad ; for several of his works had been 
translated into foreign languages, and were admired throughout 
Europe for the simplicity and ingenuity of their elucidations. Of 
his dialogues on Astronomy, Madame de Genlis says, " This book 
is written with so much clearness, that a child of ten years old 
may understand it perfectly from one end to the other." 

The faculties of distinct apprehension and luminous exposition 
belonged, indeed, to Ferguson in a pre-eminent degree. He 
doubtless owed his superiority here in a great measure to the 
peculiar manner in which he had been obliged to acquire his 
knowledge. Nothing that he had learned had been set him as a 
task. He had applied himself to whatever subject of study engaged 
his attention, simply from the desire and with the view of under- 
standing it. All that he knew, therefore, he knew thoroughly, and 
not by rote merely, as many things are learned by those who have 
no higher object than to master the task of the day. On the other 
hand, as has often happened in the case of self-educated men, the 
want of a regular director of his studies had left him ignorant of 
many departments of knowledge in which, had he been introduced 
to them, he was probably admirably adapted to distinguish himself, 
and from which he might have drawn, at all events, the most val- 
uable assistance in the prosecution of his favorite investigations. 
Thus, familiar as he was with the phenomena of astronomy and 
the practical parts of mechanics, and admirable as was his inge- 
nuity in mechanical invention, he knew nothing, or next to nothing, 
either of abstract mathematics or of the higher parts of algebra. 
He remained, in this way, to the end of his life, rather a clever 
empiric, to use the term in its original and more honorable signi- 
fication, as meaning a practical and experimenting philosopher, 




SAMUEL CROMPTON. 



SAMUEL CROMPTON. 249 

than a man of science. This was more pecuHarly the sort of peril 
to which self-educated men were exposed in Ferguson's day, when 
books of any kind were comparatively scarce, and good elementary 
works scarcely existed on any subject. Much has since been done, 
and is now doing, to supply that great desideratum ; and even 
already, in many departments, the man who can merely read is 
provided with the means of instructing himself both at little ex- 
pense, and with a facility and completeness such as a century, or 
even half a century ago, were altogether out of the question. Not 
a little, however, still remains to be accomplished before the good 
work can be considered as finished ; nor, indeed, is it the nature of 
it ever to be finished, seeing that, even if we should have perfectly 
arranged and systematized all our present knowledge, time must 
be constantly adding to our possessions here, and opening new 
worlds for philosophy to explore and conquer. 



SAMUEL CROMPTON. 

Samuel Ckompton was born on the 3d of December, 1753, at 
Firwood, in Lancashire, where his father held a farm of small 
extent ; and according to the custom of those days, employed a 
portion of his time in carding, spinning, and weaving. Hall-in-the- 
wood, a picturesque cottage near Bolton, became the residence of 
the family during the son's infancy, and the memorable scenes of 
his juvenile inventions. His father died when he was very young. 
The care of his education devolved on his rnpther, a pious woman, 
who lived in a retired manner, and imparted her own sincere and 
contemplative turn of mind to her son. In all his dealings through 
life, Samuel was strictly honest, patient, and humane. 

When about sixteen years of age, he learned to spin upon a 
jenny of Hargrave's make, and occasionally wove what he had 
spun. Being dissatisfied with the quality of his yarn, he began to 
consider how it might be improved, and was thus naturally led to 
the construction of his novel spinning-machine. He commenced 
this task when twenty-one years of age, and devoted five years to 
its execution. He possessed only such simple tools as his little 
earnings at the jenny and the loom enabled him to procure, and 
proceeded but slowly with the construction of his mule, but still in 
a progressive manner highly creditable to his dexterity and per- 
severance. 

11* 



250 FOREIGN MECHANICS, 

He often said, what annoyed him most was that he was not 
allowed to employ his little invention by himself in his garret ; for, 
as he got a better price for his yarn than his neighbors, he was 
naturally supposed to have mounted some superior mechanism, and 
hence became an object of the prying curiosity of the country peo- 
ple for miles around ; many of whom climbed up at the windows 
to see him at his work. He erected a screen in order to obstruct 
their view ; — ^but he continued to be so incommoded by crowds of 
visiters, that he resolved at last to get rid of the vexatious mystery 
by disclosing the whole contrivance before a number of gentle- 
men, who chose to subscribe a guinea apiece for the inspection 
In this way he collected about £50, and hence was enabled to 
construct another and similar machine upon a better and larger 
plan. The first contained no more than from thirty to forty 
spindles. 

The art of spinning with Crompton's machine, soon became 
widely known among work people of all descriptions, from the 
higher wages which it procured above other artisans, such as 
shoe-makers, joiners, hatters, &c ; many of whom were thereby 
induced to change their employment and become mule spinners. 
Hence it happened among this motley gang, that if any thing went 
amiss with their machine, each of them endeavored to supply the 
deficiency with some expedient borrowed from his former trade ; — 
the smith introduced a piece of iron, — the shoemaker had recourse 
to leather, — the hatter to felt, &c. &c. whereby valuable sugges- 
tions were obtained. 

When the mule first became known it was called the Hall-in-the- 

wood-wheel, from the place where it was invented, and shortly after, 

the Muslin-wheel, from its making yarn sufficiently fine for the 

manufacture of nnuslin ; — but it ultimately received the name of 

mule, from combining the principles of the jenny invented by Har- 

graves and the water frame of Arkwright : 

"The force of g^enms could no farther go, ■■ 

To make a third he joined the other two." 

Being of a retiring and unambitious disposition, and having made 
no effort to secure by a patent the exclusive enjoyment of his in- 
vention, it became public property, and was turned to advantage 
by more pushing manufacturers. 

About the year 1802, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Lee of Manchester 
set on foot a subscription for him, whereby they obtained a suffi- 
cient capital for the increase of his small manufactory. As a 
weaver also he displayed great ingenuity, and erected several 
looms, for the fancy work of that town. Being fond of music, he 
built himself an organ, with which he entertained his leisure hours 




HALL-IN-THE-WOOD, NEAR BOLTON, 
The Birth-Place of Crompton. 



WILLIAM EDWARDS. 253 

in his cottage. Though his means were slender, he was such a 
master of domestic economy, as to be always in easy circum. 
stances. In 1812, he made a survey of all the cotton districts in 
England, Scotland, and Ireland, and obtained an estimate of the 
number of spindles at work upon his mule priuciple — then amount- 
ing to between four and five millions, and in 1829 to about seven. 
On his return, he laid the result of his inquiries before his generous 
friends, Messrs. Kennedy and Lee, with a suggestion, that parlia- 
ment might possibly grant him some recompense for the national 
advantages derived from his invention. A memorial was accord, 
ingly drawn up, in furtherance of which, some of the most promi- 
nent manufacturers in the kingdom, to whom his merits were made 
Known, took a hvely interest. He went himself to London with 
the memorial, and had the satisfaction to see a bill through parlia- 
ment, for a grant to him of five thousand pounds. 

Mr. Crompton was now anxious to place his sons in business, 
and fixed upon that of bleaching ; but the unfavorable state of the 
times, — ^the inexperience and mismanagement of his sons, — a bad 
situation, and a misunderstanding with his landlord, which occa- 
sioned a tedious lawsuit, conspired in a short time to put an end to 
this establishment. His sons then dispersed, and he and his 
daughter were reduced to poverty. His friends had recourse to a 
second subscription, to purchase a life annuity for him, which pro- 
duced £63, per annum. The amount raised for this purpose was 
collected in small sums, from one to ten pounds, some of which 
were contributed by the Swiss and French spinners, who acknow- 
ledged his merits, and pitied his misfortunes. At the same time 
his portrait was engraved for liis benefit, and a few impressions 
were disposed of ; — he enjoyed this small annuity only two years. 
He died January 26, 1827, leaving his daughter, his affectionate 
housekeeper, in poverty. 

Mr. Crompton was fortunate in one respect, namely, in having 
met with a friend hke Mr. Kennedy, who had the heart to befriend 
merit and the talent to commemorate it. 



WILLIAM EDWARDS. _ 

William Edwards was born in 1719, in the parish of Eglwy. 
silan, in Glamorganshire. - He lost his father, who was a farmer, 
when he was only two years old ; but his mother continued to 

18 



254 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

hold the farm, and was in this manner enabled to bring up her 
family, consisting of two other sons and a daughter, beside Wil- 
liam, who was the youngest. Her other sons, indeed, were soon 
old enough to take the chief part of her charge oflf her hands. 
WiUiam, in the mean time, was taught, as he grew up, to read 
and write Welsh ; and this was all the education he seems to have 
received. When about the age of fifteen, he first began to em- 
ploy himself in repairing the stone fences on the farm ; and in 
this humble species of masonry he soon acquired uncommon ex- 
pertness. The excellent work he made, and the despatch with 
which he got through it, at last attracted the notice of the neigh- 
boring farmers ; and they advised his brothers to keep him at 
this business, and to let him employ his skill, when wanted, on 
other farms as well as their own. After this he was for some 
time constantly engaged ; and he regularly added his earnings to 
the common stock of the family. 

Hitherto the only sort of building he had practised, or indeed 
had seen practised, was merely with stones without mortar. But 
at length it happened that some masons came to the parish to 
erect a shed for shoeing horses near a smith's shop. By William 
the operation of these architects were contemplated with the live- 
liest interest, and he used to stand by them for hours while they 
were at work, taking nate of every movement they made. A cir- 
cumstance that at once struck him was, that they used a diflTeren 
description of hammer from what he had been accustomed to em- 
ploy ; and, perceiving its superiority, he immediately got one of 
the same kind made for himself With this he found he could 
build his walls both a good deal faster and more neatly than he 
had been wont to do. But it was not long after he had, for the 
first time in his life, had an opportunity of seeing how houses were 
erected, that he undertook to build one himself It was a work, 
shop for a neighbor ; and he performed his task in such a man- 
ner as obtained him great applause. Very soon after this he was 
employed to erect a mill, by which he still farther increased his 
reputation as an able and ingenious workman. Mr. Malkin, to 
whose work on the Scenery, &c., of South Wales, we are indebied 
for these particulars of Edwards's early life, as well as for Jie 
materials of the sequel of our sketch, says, that it was while build- 
ing this mill that the self-taught architect became acquainted with 
the principle of the arch. 

After this achievement, Edwards was accounted the best work- 
man in that part of the country ; and being highly esteemed for 
his integrity and fidelity to his engagements, as well as for his 
skill, he had as much employment in his line of a common builder. 



WILLIAM EDWARDS. 255 

as he could undertake. In his twenty-seventh year, however, he 
was induced to engage in an enterprise of a much more diiEcult 
and important character than any thing he had hitherto attempted. 
Through his native parish, in which he still continued to reside, 
flowed the river called the TafF, which, following a southward 
course, flows at last into the estuary of the Severn. It was pro- 
posed to throw a bridge over this river at a particular spot in the 
parish of Eglwysilan, where it crossed the line of an intended road ; 
but to this design difficulties of a somewhat formidable nature pre- 
sented themselves, owing both to the great breadth of the water, 
and the frequent swellings to which it was subject. Mountains 
covered with wood rose to a considerable height from both its 
banks ; which first attracted and detained every approaching 
cloud, and then sent down its collected discharge in torrents into 
the river. Edwards, however, undertook the task of constructing 
the proposed bridge, though it was the first work of the kind in 
which he ever had engaged. Accordingly, in the year 1746, he 
set to work ; and in due time completed a very light and elegant 
bridge of three arches, which, notwithstanding that it was the 
work of both an entirely self-taught and an equally untravelled 
artist, was acknowledged to be superior to any thing of the kind 
in Wales. So far his success had been as perfect as could have 
been desired. But his undertaking was far from being yet finished. 
He had, both through himself and his friends, given security that 
the work should stand for seven years ; and for the first two years 
and a half of this term all went on well. There then occurred a 
flood of extraordinary magnitude ; not only the torrents came 
down from the mountains in their accustomed channels, but they 
brought along with them trees of the largest size, which they had 
torn up by the roots ; and these, detained as they floated along by 
the middle piers of the new bridge, formed a dam there, the waters 
accumulated behind which at length burst from their confinement 
and swept away the whole structure. This was no light misfor- 
tune in every way to poor Edwards ; but he did not suffer himself 
to be disheartened by it, and immediately proceeded, as his con- 
tract bound him to do, to the erection of another bridge, in the 
room of the one that had been destroyed. He now determined, 
however, to adopt a very magnificent idea — ^to span the whole 
width of the river, namely, by a single arch of the unexampled 
magnitude of one hundred and forty feet from pier to pier. He 
finished the erection of this stupendous arch in 1751, and had only 
to add the parapets, when he was doomed once more to behold 
his bridge sink into the water over which he had raised it, the 
extraordinary weight of the masonry having forced up the key. 



256 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

stones, and, of course, at once deprived the arch of what sustained 
its equipoise. Heavy as was this second disappointment to the 
hopes of the young architect, it did not shake his courage any 
more than the former had done. The reconstruction of his bridge 
for the third time was immediately begun with unabated spirit and 
confidence. Still determined to adhere to his last plan of a single 
arch, he had now thought of an ingenious contrivance for diminish, 
ing the enormous weight which had formerly forced the keystone 
out of its place. In each of the large masses of masonry called 
the haunches of the bridge, being the parts immediately above the 
two extremities of the arch, he opened three cylindrical holes, 
which not only relieved the central part of the structure from all 
over-pressure, but greatly improved its general appearance in 
point of lightness and elegance. The bridge, with this improve- 
ment, was finished in 1755, having occupied the architect about 
nine years in all ; and it has stood ever since. 

This bridge over the Taff" — commonly called the New Bridge, 
and by the Welsh Pont y Pridd, — was, at the time of its erection, 
the largest stone arch known to exist in the world. Before its 
erection, the Rialto at Venice, the span of which was only ninety, 
eight feet, was entitled, as Mr. Malkin remarks, to this distinction 
among bridges ; unless, indeed, we are to include the famous 
aqueduct-bridge at Alcantara, near Lisbon, consisting in all of 
thirty-five arches, the eighth of which is rather more than a hun. 
dred and eight feet in width, and two hundred and twenty-seven in 
height. The bridge at Alcantara was finished in 1732. Since 
the erection of the bridge over the Taff", several other stone arches 
of extraordinary dimensions have been built both in Great Britain 
and in France ; such, for instance, as the five composing the 
splendid Pont de Neuilly over the Seine, near Paris, the span of 
each of which is a hundred and twenty.eight feet — the central arch 
of the bridge over the same river at Mantes, which is of the same 
dimensions — the Island Bridge, as it is called, over the Liffey, near 
Dublin, which is a single arch of a hundred and six feet in width — 
the bridge over the Tees, at Winston, in Yorkshire, which is also 
a single arch of a hundred and eight feet nine inches wide, and 
which was built in 1762 by John Johnson, a common mason, at a 
cost of only five hundred pounds — and the nine elliptical arches, 
each of a hundred and twenty feet span, forming the magnificent 
Waterloo bridge, over the Thames at London. But no one of 
these great works rivals in respect of dimensions the arch con. 
structed by Edwards. The bridge over the TafF, we may add, 
rises to the height of thirty-five feet above the water, and is the 
segment of a circle of a hundred and seventy feet in diameter. 



WILLIAM EDWARDS. 257 

Buttressed as it is at each extremity by lofty mountains, while the 
water flows in full tide beneath it, its aspect, as it is seen rising 
into the air, may well be conceived to be particularly striking and 
grand. 

This bridge, which is looked upon as a wonder to this day, 
spread the fame of Edwards over all the country. He afterwards 
built many other bridges in South Wales, several of which con- 
sisted also of single arches of considerable width, although in no 
case approaching to that of the arch over the TafF. One which 
he erected over the Tawy, near Swansea, had a span of eighty 
feet — another at Llandoveiy, in Carmarthenshire, was eighty-four 
feet wide — and a third, Wychbree bridge, over the Tawy, was of 
the width of ninety-five feet. All the bridges which Edwards built 
after his first attempt have their arches formed of segments of 
much larger circles than he ventured to try in that case ; and the 
roads over them are consequently much flatter, — a convenience 
which amply compensates for their inferiority in point of imposing 
appearance. He found his way to this improvement entirely by 
his own experience and sagacity ; as indeed he may be said to 
have done to all the knowledge he possessed in his art. Even his 
principles of common masonry, he used himself to declare, he had 
learned chiefly from his studies among the ruins of an old Gothic 
castle in his native parish. In bridge building, the three objects 
which he always strove to attain in the highest possible degree 
were, first, durability ; secondly, freedom for the passage of the 
water under the bridge ; and lastly, ease of trafiic over it. 

In commencing architect, Edwards did not abandon the business 
of his forefathers. He was likewise a farmer to the end of his 
life. Nay, such was his unwearied activity, that, not satisfied with 
his week-day labors in these two capacities, he also officiated on 
Sundays as pastor to an Independent catfigregation, having been 
regularly ordained to that office when he was about thirty years 
of age, and holding it till his death. He accepted the usual 
salary from his congi-egation, considering it right that they should 
support their minister ; but, instead of putting the money into his 
own pocket, he returned it all, and often much more, in charity to 
the poor. He always preached in Welsh, although early in life he 
had also made himself acquainted with the English language, hav- 
ing embraced the opportunity of acquiring it under the tuition of 
a bhnd old schoolmaster in whose house he once lodged for a short 
time while doing some work at the county town of Cardiflf. He is 
said to have shown aU his characteristic assiduity of application in 
this effort, and to have made a correspondingly rapid progress. 

This ingenious and worthy man died in 1789, in the seventieth 
18* 



258 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

year of his age, leaving a family of six children, of whom las 
eldest son David became also an eminent architect and bridge, 
builder, although he had had no other instruction in his profession 
than what his father had given him. 



RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 

We now propose to give, in the memoir of the celebrated Rich- 
ard Arkwright, some account of an individual, whose rise from a 
very humble origin to affluence and distinction was the result of 
his persevering attention to the improvement of the machinery 
employed in one of the most important branches of manufactures, 
and whose name is intimately connected with the recent history of 
the commercial greatness of his native country. This illustrious 
individual, persecuted and calumniated as nearly all the signal ben- 
efactors of corrupt humanity have ever been, was raised up by 
providence from an obscure rank in life to vindicate the natural 
equality of man. 

Arkwright was born on the 23d of December, 1732, at Pros- 
ton, in Lancashire. His parents were very poor, and he was the 
youngest of a family of thirteen children ; so that we may suppose 
the school education he received, if he ever was at school at all, 
was extremely limited. Indeed, but little learning would probably 
be deemed necessary for the profession to which he was bred, — 
that of a barber. This business he continued to follow till he was 
nearly thirty years of age ; and this first period of his history is 
of course obscure enough. About the year 1760, however, or soon 
after, he gave up shaving, and commenced business as an itinerant 
dealer in hair, collecting the commodity by travelling up and down 
the country, and then, after he had dressed it, selling it again to 
the wig-makers, with whom he very soon acquired the character 
of keeping a better article than any of his rivals in the same trade. 
He had obtained possession, too, we are told, of a secret method 
of dyeing the hair, by which he doubtless contrived to augment 
his profits ; and perhaps, in his accidental acquaintance with this 
little piece of chemistry, we may find the germ of that sensibility 
he soon began to manifest to the value of new and unpublished in- 
ventions in the arts, and of his passion for patent rights and the 
pleasures of monopoly. 

It would appear that his first effort in mechanics, as has hap- 




RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, 

FOUNDER or THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 



RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 261 

pened in the case of many other ingenious men, was an attempt to 
discover the perpetual motion. It was in inquiring after a person 
to make him some wheels for a project of this kind, that in the latter 
part of the year 1767, he got acquainted with a clockmaker of the 
name of Kay, then residing at Warrington, with whom it is certain 
that he remained for a considerable time after closely connected. 
From this moment we may date his entrance upon a new career. 

The manufacture of cotton cloths was introduced into Great 
Britain only towards the end of the seventeenth century ; although 
stuffs, improperly called Manchester cottons, had been fabricated 
nearly three centuries before, which, however, were made entirely 
of wool. It is generally thought that the first attempt at the man- 
ufacture of cotton goods in Europe did not take place till the end 
of the fifteenth century, when the art was introduced into Italy. 
Before this, the only cottons known had been imported from the 
East Indies. 

The English cottons, for many years after the introduction of 
the manufacture, had only the weft of cotton ; the warp, or longi- 
tudinal threads of the cloth, being of linen. It was conceived to 
be impracticable to spin the cotton with a sufficiently hard twist 
to make it serviceable for this latter purpose. Although occasion- 
ally exported, too, in small quantities, the manufactured goods were 
chiefly ^onsumed at home. It was not till about the year 1760 that 
any considerable demand for them arose abroad. 

But about this time the exportation of cottons, both to the con- 
tinent and to America, began to be carried on on a larger scale, 
and the manufacture of course received a corresponding impulse. 
The thread had hitherto been spun entirely, as it still continues to 
be in India, by the tedious process of the distaff" and spindle, the 
spinner drawing out only a single thread at a time. But as the de- 
mand for the manufactured article continued to increase, a greater 
and greater scarcity of weft was experienced, tili, at last, although 
there were 50,000 spindles constantly at work in Lancashire alone, 
each occupying an individual spinner, they were found quite insuffi- 
cient to supply the quantity of thread required. The weavers gen- 
erally, in those days, had the weft they used spun for them by the 
females of their family ; and now "those weavers," says Mr. Guest, 
in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, " whose families could not 
furnish the necessary supply of weft, had their spinning done by 
their neighbors, and were obliged to pay more for the spinning than 
the price allowed by their masters ; and even with this disadvantage, 
very few could procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly 
employed. It was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three 
or four miles in a morning, and call on five or six spinners, befort 



262 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

he could collect weft to serve him for the remainder of the day; 
and when he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, 
a new ribband or gown was necessary to quicken the exertions of 
the spinner." 

It was natural in this state of things, that attempts should be 
made to contrive some method of spinning more effective than that 
which had hitherto been in use ; and, in fact, several ingenious in- 
dividuals seem to have turned their attention to the subject. Long 
before this time, indeed, spinning by machinery had been thought of 
by more than one speculator. Mr. Wyatt, of Litchfield, is stated 
to have actually invented an apparatus for that purpose so early as 
the year 1733, and to have had factoi-ies built and filled with his 
machines, both at Birmingham and Northampton. These undertak- 
ings, however, not being successful, the machines were allowed to 
perish, and no model or description of them was preserved. There 
was also Mr. Laurence Earnshaw, of Mottram, in Cheshire, of 
whom " it is recorded that, in the year 1753, he invented a ma- 
chine to spin and reel cotton at one operation, which he showed to 
his neighbors, and then destroyed it, through the generous appre- 
hension that he might deprive the poor of bread," — a mistake, but 
a benevolent one. 

From the year 1767, it appears that Arkwright gave himself up 
completely to the subject of inventions for spinning cotton.* In the 
following year, he began constructing his first machine at Preston, 
in the dwelling-house attached to the free grammar-school there. 
At this time, Arkwright 's poverty was such, that being " a burgess 
of Preston," he could not appear to vote during a contested election 
till the party with whom he voted gave him a decent suit of clothes. 
Shortly after, apprehensive of meeting with hostility from one Har- 
grave, a carpenter at Blackburn, who had just invented the spin- 
ning-jenny,* Arkwright left Lancashire, and went to Nottingham. 
Here, after some disappointment of resources, he arranged with 
Messrs. Need and Jedediah Strutt, of Derby, the latter the inge- 
nious improver and patentee of the stocking-frame ; f and, with 
such aid, Arkwright resumed his experimental labors. He con- 
sulted Mr. Strutt upon the matter ; and it is a remarkable fact, 
strongly corroborative of Arkwright ^s claim to be the original in- 
ventor, (which was subsequently disputed,) that although Mr. Strutt 
saw and acknowledged the great merit of the invention, he pointed 
out various deficiencies, which the inventor, from the want of me- 

* The jenny gave the means of spinning twenty or thirty threads at once, with 
■10 more labor than had pre-yiously been required to spin a single thread. 

t Mr. Strutt was the first individual who succeeded in adapting the stocking 
frame to the manufacture of ribbed stockings. 



RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 263 

chanical skill, had been miable to supply. These defects were 
easily remedied by Mr. Strutt ; and in the year 1769, Arkwright 
obtained his first patent for spinning with rollers, Messrs. Need 
and Strutt becoming his partners in the manufacturing concerns 
which it was proposed to carry on under it. 

The improvement for which this patent was obtained, or the 
spinning -frame, spins a vast number of threads of any degree of 
fineness and hardness, leaving man merely to feed the machine 
with cotton, and to joiQ the threads when they happen to break. 
The principle on which this machine is constructed, and its mode 
of operation, will be easily understood. It consists of two pairs 
of rollers turned by machinery. The lower roller of each pair is 
furrowed or fluted longitudinally, and the upper one is covered 
with leather, by which means the two have a sufficient hold upon^ 
the cotton passed between them. The cotton, when passed through 
the first pair of rollers, has the form of a thick but very soft cord, 
which is slightly pressed : but no sooner has the cotton carding, 
or roving, as it is technically called, begun to pass through the first 
pair of rollers, than it is received by the second pair, which are 
made to revolve with (as the case may be) twice, thrice, or ten 
times the velocity of the first pair, so that the cotton is necessarily ' 
drawn out twice, thrice, or ten times smaller than when delivered 
from the first rollers. 

It is obvious that the principle of the spinning-frame is radically 
different from the previous methods of spinning, either by the com- 
mon hand- wheel or distaff, or by the jenny, which is only a modi- 
fication of the common wheel. Spinning by rollers was entirely 
an original idea, according to Arkwright, suggested to him by 
seeing a red-hot iron bar elongated by being made to pass between 
two rollers ; and though there is no mechanical analogy between 
that operation and the process of spinning, it is not difficult to 
imagine that, by reflecting upon it, and placing the subject in dif- 
ferent points of view, it might lead him to his invention. 

The first mill erected for spinning cotton by this method was at 
Nottingham, and was worked by horse-power ; but, in 1771, an- 
other mill was built at Cromford, in the parish of Wirksworth, in 
Derbyshire, to which motion was given by water ; from this cir- 
cumstance the machine was called the water-frame, and the thread 
received the name of water-twist. 

Previous to this time, no establishment of a similar nature had 
existed, none, at least, to which the same system of management 
was applicable ; and it strongly marks the judgment and mental 
powers of Arkwright, that although the details of manufacturing 
or commercial business were altogether new to him, he at once 

12 



264 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

introduced a system of arrangement into his works, which has 
since been universally adopted by others, and which, in all its 
main features, has remained unaltered to the present time. 

Arkwright having made several additional improvements in the 
processes of carding, roving, and spinning, he next took out a 
fresh patent for the whole in the year 1775 ; and thus completed 
a series of machinery so various and complicated, yet so admirably 
combined and well adapted to produce the intended effect, in its 
most perfect form, as to excite the astonishment and admiration 
of every one capable of appreciating the ingenuity displayed and 
the difficulties overcome. 

Arkwright did not, however, enjoy the rights of his ingenuity 
without opposition, alike from the manufacturers and the spinners 
and weavers. Repeated attacks were made by them on the fac- 
tories built for Arkwright 's machines ; his patents were invaded 
by the manufacturers ; while it became the fashion to depreciate 
his talents, and even to deny him altogether the merit of being an 
original inventor. Circumstantial accounts of this system of in- 
justice towards Arkwright will be found in the History of the 
Cotton Manufacture. The details are too numerous for quotation 
here ; but they will be readily found in the Encyclopsedia Britan- 
nica, in which is this conclusion : — " We have access to know, 
that none of Mr. Arkwright 's most intimate friends, and who were 
best acquainted with his character, ever had the slightest doubt 
with respect to the originality of his invention. Some of them, 
indeed, could speak to the circumstances from their own personal 
knowledge ; and their testimony was uniform and consistent. 
Such also seems to be the opinion now generally entertained 
among the principal manufacturers of Manchester." In the Penny 
Cyclopaedia it is remarked, that " if the evidence be fully weighed 
upon which it has been attempted to convict Arkwright of the 
serious charge, (of pirating other men''s ideas,) we think it will be 
found to rest upon very slight grounds ; while the proofs which he 
exhibited of possessing talents of the very highest order in the 
management of the vast concerns in which he was afterwards 
engaged, are unquestionable.'" 

It was not until after the lapse of five years from their erection 
that by the works at Cromford any profit was realized ; but from 
that time wealth flowed in abundantly to the proprietors. The 
establishments were greatly extended, several new ones were 
formed, and, in many cases, Arkwright took a share with other 
persons in the erection and working of cotton-mills. The tide to 
fortune had set in, and continued to flow, notwith&xanding Ark- 
wright 's patent had been cancelled by law. " For several years, 



RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 267 

the market prices of cotton twist were fixed by Arkwrigxit, all 
other spinners conforming to his scale. The same quahty of this 
article which now sells for 3*. per pound, sold in 1790 for ten 
times that price, and was as high as 11. ISs. per pound ; and al- 
though a great part of this difference is, no doubt, owing to a pro- 
gressive economy attained in the processes of manufacture, it is 
not difficult to imagine that the larger price must have been ex- 
ceedingly profitable to the spinner." 

Meanwhile, Arkwright had almost built the town of Cromford, 
in a deep valley on the south bank of the Derwent. The struc 
tures are chiefly of excellent gritstone procured in the neighbor- 
hood ; and here Arkwright lived in patriarchal prosperity amidst 
the scenes of industry where he raised up his own fortune. The 
mills are to this day supplied from a never-failing spring of warm 
water, which also proves to be of great advantage to the canal in 
severe seasons, as it rarely freezes, in consequence of a portion 
of the water from this spring flowing into it. The mill engraved 
on the adjoining page is a spacious building near the upper end 
of the Dale : its operations have been elegantly described by Dr. 
Darwin, in his ^Botanic Garden, — " a work which discovers the 
art, hitherto unknown, of clothing in poetical language, and deco- 
rating with beautiful imagery, the unpoetical operations of me- 
chanical processes, and the dry detail of manufactures :" — 

" Where Derwent guides his dusky floods. 
Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods, 
The nymph Gossypia treads the velvet sod, 
And warms with rosy sirdles the watery god ; 
His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns, 
And pours o'er massy wheels his foaming urns; 
I With playful charms her hoary lover wins, 

And wheels his trident, while the Monarch spins. 

First, with nice eye emerging Naiads cull 

From leathery pods the vegetable wool ; 

With wiry teeth revolving cards release 

The tangled knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece ; 

Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine. 

Combs the wide card, and forms th' eternal line ; 

Slow with soft lips the whirling can acquires 

The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires ; 

Mlth quicken'd pace successive rollers move, 

And these retain, and those extend, the rove ; 

Then fly the spokes, the rapid axles glow ; 

While slowly circumvolves the lab'ring wheel below." 

Nor was Cromford benefited only by the ingenuity of its founder 
in a commercial sense ; for, having obtained the grant of a market 
for the town, he commenced building a chapel of freestone, which 
has since been completed by his son. He liberally contributed to 
educational and other charities. In 1786, he was appointed high 



368 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

sheriff of Derbyshire, and, on the occasion of presenting an address 
of congratulation to the king on his escaping the attempt at assas- 
sination by Margaret Nicholson, Mr. Arkwright received the honor 
of knighthood. Though a man of great personal strength, during 
the whole of his active career he was laboring under a very severe 
asthma. Yet, to the latest period of his life, Sir Richard continued 
to give unremitted attention to business, and superintended the 
daily operations of his large estabhshments, adding from time to 
time such improvements to the machinery as were suggested by 
experience and observation. He sank, at length, under a compli. 
cation of disorders, accelerated, if not produced, by his sedentary 
habits, and died in his house at Cromford, on August 3, 1792, in 
the sixtieth year of his age, leaving behind him a fortune estimated 
at little short of half a million. 

The death of Sir Richard Arkwright was a sorrowful event to 
all classes of this district. His funeral was conducted with fitting 
splendor. Mr. Malcolm, the antiquarian, was entering Matlock 
from Chesterfield, at the time when the procession was passing to 
Matlock church, where the body was first interred ; he says — " as 
the ground I was on was much higher than the Tor, or any of the 
hills at Matlock, I was at once surprised and delighted with the 
grand and awful scene that expanded below me ; all the rich pro- 
fusion of wild nature thrown together in an assemblage of objects 
the most sublime. To heighten the view, the Tor, and rocks near 

it, were covered with crowds of people The road was nearly 

impassable, from the crowds of people who had assembled to wit- 
ness the procession. The ceremony was conducted with much 
pomp, and, as nearly as I can remember, was thus : a coach and 
four with the clergy ; another with the pall-bearers ; the hearse, 
covered with escutcheons, and surrounded by mutes, followed ; 
then the horse of the deceased, led by a servant ; the relations, 
and about fifteen or twenty carriages, closed the procession, which 
was nearly half a mile in length. The evening was gloomy, and 
the solemn stillness that reigned was only interrupted by the 
rumbling of the carriages, and the gentle murmurs of the river ; 
and, as they passed, the echo of the Tor gently returned the sound. 
The scene was so rich and uncommon that I continued to gaze 
till a turn in the road closed the whole. How greatly would the 
effect have been heightened by a choir chanting a dirge!'''' 

The body was subsequently removed to Cromford chapel, where- 
in is the family vault of the Arkwrights, with a beautiful monument 
by Chantrey. 

The character of Sir Richard Arkwright is one upon which we 
could linger with untiring interest ; so fine a specimen was he of 



RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 269 

genius, industry, and perseverance : he was, indeed, one of the 
honorables of the land. In the Encyclopsedia Britannica, it is 
truly remarked : " No man ever better deserved his good fortune, 
or has a stronger claim on the respect and gratitude of posterity. 
His inventions have opened a new and boundless field of employ, 
ment ; and while they have conferred infinitely more real benefit 
on his native country than she could have derived from the abso- 
lute dominion of Mexico and Peru, they have been universally 
productive of wealth and enjoyments." 

The most marked traits of Arkwright were his wonderful 
ardor, energy, and perseverance. He commonly labored in his 
multifarious concerns from five o ''clock in the morning till nine at 
night ; and that, too, when considerably more than fifty years of 
age. Feeling that his defects of education placed him under great 
difficulty and inconvenience in conducting his correspondence, and 
in the general management of his business, he encroached upon 
his sleep, in order to gain an hour each day to learn English 
grammar, and another hour to improve his writing and orthog- 
raphy. He was impatient of whatever interfered with his favorite 
pursuits ; and the fact is too strikingly characteristic not to be 
mentioned, that he separated from his wife not many years after 
their marriage, because she, convinced that he would starve his 
family by scheming when he should be shaving, broke some of his 
experimental models of machinery. He was a severe economist 
of time ; and, that he might not waste a moment, generally trav- 
elled with four horses at full speed. His concerns in Derbyshire, 
Lancashire, and Scotland were so extensive and numerous, as to 
show at once his astonishing power of transacting business. In- 
deed, his schemes were vast and daring, as his talents were great 
and his industry indefatigable. 

Thus it was from a poor barber he raised himself to what he 
eventually became — not merely to rank and great afiluence, but to 
be the founder of a new branch of national industry, destined, in 
a wonderfully short space of time, to assume the very first place 
among the manufactures of his country. So great has been its 
increase, that it has been calculated that, while the number of per- 
sons in his native countiy, previous to his inventions, who were 
employed in the cotton manufacture, did not probably amount to 
thirty thousand, the number now engaged in its difierent depart- 
ments can hardly be less than a miUion. Yet, in some branches 
of the business, it has been stated, the spinning in particular, 
such is the economy of labor introduced by the use of machinery, 
that one man and four children will spin as much yarn as was 
spun by six hundred women and girls, seventy years ago ! 

19 



M. GUINAND 

Abottt eighty years have elapsed, since this interesting man 
was employed in assisting his father, as a joiner, in a remote 
village among the mountains of Neufchatel, in Switzerland. His 
parent must have been in very indifferent circumstances, as his 
son was thus engaged when only ten years of age. His early 
education was much neglected ; indeed, he never acquired more 
than an imperfect knowledge of the first rudiments of learning, 
always reading with difficulty, and writing very imperfectly. He 
must, even at this early period, have been a lad of considerable 
talent, and of a disposition that urged him to the exertion requi- 
site for raising his condition in society. We find him, when be- 
tween thirteen and fourteen years old, having quitted the employ- 
ment of a joiner for that of a cabinetmaker, chiefly engaged in 
making cases for clocks. 

At this period he became acquainted with a buckle maker, 
who lived in the neighborhood, and of whom he learned the art 
of casting, and working in various metals, which enabled him 
about the age of twenty, after once witnessing the process, to at- 
tempt the construction of a watch case ; having succeeded, he 
adopted the occupation of a watch-case maker, which was then 
very lucrative. 

Having constructed clock cases for M. Jaquet Droz, the well 
known constructor of several automaton figures, which fifty years 
ago made the tour of Europe, he had an opportunity of seeing, 
at the house of that celebrated mechanist, a very fine English 
reflecting telescope, which appeared to him extremely curious 
and interesting. These instruments were very rare at that time 
in Switzerland, especially among the mountains. M. Guinand 
was then in his twentieth or twenty-third year, and it cannot be 
doubted that this circumstance, in itself unimportant, first turned 
his mind towards that subject, to which, encouraged by success, 
he afterwards more particularly devoted himself. 

Be that as it may, having expressed a wish to be allowed to 
take to pieces this telescope, that he might examine it in detail, 
M. Jaquet Droz, who had noticed his dexterity, kindly gave him 
permission, and with equal good-nature relieved him from his ap- 
prehension of being unable to put it together again, by taking that 
task upon himself, if it should prove too difficult for him. Thus 
encouraged, he took the instrument to pieces, accurately measured 
the curves of the reflectors and glasses, and afterwards readily 



M. GUINAND. 271 

put It together; tlien availing himself of the few notions of metal- 
lurgy which he had acquired from his friend the buckle maker, 
as well as the experience he had acquired in casting ornaments 
for clock cases, he attempted the construction of a similar tele- 
scope, and the experiment succeeded so well, that on a compara- 
tive trial of his own instrument with that which had been its 
model in presence of a great number of persons, it was impossible 
to determine whicn of them the preference was due. 

M. Jaquet Droz, surprised at his success, asked our young 
friend what treatise on optics he had followed as his guide, and 
was astonished when he informed him that he was unacquainted 
with any. He then placed one in his hands ; and it was not until 
this period that M. Guinand studied, or rather deciphered the 
principles of that science. 

, About the same time occurred another fortunate circumstance, 
in itself as trivial as the former. Having been always weak 
sighted, he found, when he began to make watch cases, that the 
spectacles which had hitherto answered his purpose, were no 
longer of service, and being directed to a person whose glasses 
were said to have given great satisfaction, he obtained a pair, 
which really suited him no better than the others, but by looking 
on while they were making, he learned the art of forming and 
polishing the lenses. He, therefore, undertook to make specta- 
cles, not only for himself, but for various other persons, who pro- 
nounced them excellent. This new acquirement he found very 
useful in his favorite pursuit ; and he amused himself in manu- 
facturing great numbers of telescopes of an inferior quality, for 
which he made the tubes himself, generally of pasteboard. He 
also studied the small number of works he was able to procure, 
which treated on subjects connected with optics. 

Meanwhile the ingenious and important discovery of achromatic 
glasses was beginning to spread ; and having reached that country, 
it could not fail of being very interesting to M. Guinand, who 
listened with avidity to all he heard on this subject. M. Jaquet 
Droz, having procured one of these new glasses, permitted M. 
Guinand, as in the instance of the reflecting telescope, to take it 
to pieces, and to separate the lenses. It will be readily conceived 
that the purpose of the latter was to attempt the construction of 
a similar instrument, but in this he was impeded by the difficulty 
of procuring glasses of different refractive power. It was not 
until some years after, that an acquaintance of his, M. Recordon, 
having proceeded to England, where he obtained a patent for his 
self-winding watches, which were then in great request, brought 
him from that country some flint glass ; and though the specimen 

12* 



272 FOREIGN MECHANICS 

was much striated, he found means to manufacture from it some 
tolerably good achromatic glasses. 

Having obtained supplies of this material on various occasions, 
and having seen other glasses besides those of M. Jaquet Droz, he 
easily ascertained that flint glass which is not extremely defective, 
is rarely to be met with. Thus convinced of the impossibility of 
procuring it of that quahty which he ardently wished to obtain for 
the construction of his telescopes, and having by his various la- 
bors become sufficiently skilled in the art of fusion, he melted in 
his blast furnace the fragments of this flint glass ; no satisfactory 
result was obtained, but he discovered from some particles of lead 
which reappeared during the process, that this metal was a con- 
stituent in the composition of flint glass. At the time of his first 
experiment he had attained his thirty fifth or sixth year. The 
ardent desire to obtain some of this glass then induced him to col- 
lect from the different works he was able to procure,^ such notions 
of chemistry as might be useful to him in his attempts at vitrifica- 
tion ; and during six or seven years he employed a part of his 
evenings in different experiments, melting at each time in his blast 
furnace three or four pounds of glass ; he took care, in every ex- 
periment, to note down the substance and proportions of his com- 
binations, the time of their fusion, and as nearly as possible the 
degree of heat to which he had subjected them ; then, by an atten- 
tive examination of the results of liis experiments, he endeavored 
to discover the causes which had rendered his products defective, 
In order that he might remedy them in a subsequent trial. While 
occupied in these researches he derived a strong incentive to per- 
severance, from the prizes which he understood to have been offer- 
ed for this desideratum by different academies, and especially by 
the Royal Society of London, a copy of whose proposals was pro- 
cured for him. At a later period he also learned in a more posi- 
tive manner, from statements given in a work which fell into his 
hands, of the almost total impossibility which existed of procuring 
flint glass exempt from strice ; all this impressed him with the im- 
portance of the discovery at which he was aiming, and stimulated 
him in the pursuit. These experiments, however, were made, as 
he observed, on too small a scale, and proved fruitless. 

At the age of forty and upwards, having relinquished the trade 
of watch-case maker for that of maker of bells for repeaters, at 
that timo very lucrative, (since he could make as many as twenty- 
four in a day, for which he was paid five francs each,) he resolved 
to prosecute his experiments on a more extended scale. Having 
purchased a retired place on the banks of the Doubs, near the Bre- 
nets, where the establishment is at present situated, he constructed 



M. GUINAND. 273 

with his own hands a furnace capable of melting at one time two 
hundred weight of glass, and settled there with his family on a very 
economical plan, in order to dedicate all his earnings and leisure 
to new and expensive experiments ; yet he was compelled to em- 
ploy an interval between each one of his experiments in earning at 
his regular employment sufficieht means for subsistence, and for 
providing the apparatus and materials needful for renewing them. 

In this pursuit he was still exposed to numerous accidents and 
difficulties, which would have deterred most persons from continu- 
ing the research. His furnace, which he had constructed with his 
own hands, out of such materials as he could procure, and which 
was capable of melting at once two hundred pounds of glass, 
proved defective. He was then obliged to procure materials for the 
purpose from abroad, and having once more completed its erection, 
and consumed much fuel in heating it, had the mortification to find 
that it still required alteration. Then his crucibles, which he was 
equally obliged to form with materials ill-qualified for the object, 
cracked during the process, and the contents were lost among the 
ashes. All this time the pursuit had laid hold so completely of 
his mind, that he was deprived of his natural rest while consider- 
ing upon the causes of his various failures, and endeavoring to 
reason out the means for their prevention. 

Having at length succeeded in obtaining a block of glass weigh- 
ing about two hundred pounds, and having sawn it into two verti- 
cal sections, he polished one of the faces, in order, as far as possi- 
ble, to examine the circumstances produced by the fusion. 

To account for the numerous and various defects exhibited by 
this specimen, Guinand formed a theory which he made the ground- 
work of his fiiture operations. A more intimate knowledge of 
these defects, and a conviction thus attained of the great difficulties 
opposed to their removal, instead of damping his ardor in the pur- 
suit, served to infuse new energy into his mind. Nor was he 
mistaken in his estimate of the obstacles to be surmounted ; " so 
that,'" as he himself declared, "the sacrifices and exertions which 
he had previously made, were trifling when compared with those 
which he afterwards underwent for the purpose of removing these 
various defects, and of rendering his glass homogeneous." 

The steps through which he pursued this arduous undertaking, 
and the methods by which its success was accomplished, it is not 
possible to detail. All that is publicly known upon the subject is, 
that he succeeded in discovering a mode of proceeding which gave 
the almost certainty of producing in the fusion of a pot containing 
from two to four hundred pounds of glass, one half at least of its 
substance entirely of the same nature, and therefore fitted for the 

19* 



274 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

construction of perfect optical instruments. With this result, sat- 
isfactory as it would have been to most men, Guinand expressed 
himself by no means contented, and continued his researches, 
without, however, ever arriving much nearer to perfection in the 
art. He was now enabled to make use of, for discs, glass perfectly 
homogeneous, with a diameter of twelve inches : a great achieve- 
ment, when compared with what had been at any time accompUsh- 
ed by others. 

A year or two before his death, he tried an experiment on a 
larger scale than any he had previously attempted. After much 
trouble and exertion, he succeeded in obtaining a disc of eighteen 
inches in diameter, of perfectly homogeneous glass. The disc 
had been put into the oven for the last time, to be gradually cooled : 
and the operation being now considered as completed, his frienda 
and neighbors were admitted, and partook of some refreshment ; 
while offering their congratulations on his unprecedented success 
after so long a seclusion, the fire by some accident or neglect caught 
the roof of the building. On this alarming occasion ail present 
exerted themselves, and after some trouble the flames were extin- 
guished ; but not before some water had found its way into the oven 
and destroyed its precious contents. The discouragement caused 
by this misfortune, and some other circumstances, ever after pre- 
vented him from any experiment on a similar scale. 

For some time after he had thus far succeeded in his object, he 
was accustomed to divide his blocks of glass by that which appear- 
ed to be the only fitting method, sawing them into sections perpen- 
dicular to their axis, polishing their sections, and then selecting 
such parts as were adapted to his purpose, returning the remaining 
portion to the crucible for farther operations. By this means he 
had frequently the mortification of perceiving, that the glass was 
divided so as to present a less extended surface of the perfect ma- 
terial, than the state of the block would, if previously known, have 
rendered possible ; and he was frequently able to procure discs of 
only small diameter, when, could he have been fuUy aware of the 
particular circumstances of the glass throughout its substance, he 
might, by cutting in another direction, have obtained a more satis- 
factory result. 

This disadvantage was remedied in a way apparently as unto- 
ward as it was singular and unexpected. While his men were 
carrying one day a block of glass on a handbarrow to a water saw- 
mill, which he had constructed at the fall of the river Doubs, a 
short distance from his dwelling, the mass accidentally slipped, and 
roUing to the bottom of a rocky declivity, was broken into several 
pieces. Endee^voring to make the best of this seeming misfortune, 



M. GUINAND. 275 

such fragments of glass were selected for operation as appeared 
to be fitted by their homogeniety for the purpose ; and these were 
softened in circular moulds, in such a manner that they furnished 
discs of a very satisfactory quality. Further examination enabled 
him to perceive that the fracture had in a great measure followed 
the variations of density in the glass ; and, pursuing the idea thus 
obtained, the artist thenceforth adhered to a method so singularly 
in the first instance forced upon him. 

After this, he contrived a mode of cleaving the glass while cool- 
ing, so that the fracture accompanied the direction of the more 
faulty parts ; by which course he frequently obtained masses of 
glass which were absolutely homogeneous, weighing from forty to 
fifty pounds. These masses, cleft again by means of wedges into 
pieces of convenient shape, were remelted into moulds which gave 
them the form of discs ; an operation which differs essentially 
from that used by other glass makers. 

Several years of his life were thus employed in making bells for 
repeating watches and constructing achromatic telescopes with 
glass of his own preparing. The retired spot wherein he resided, 
offered only very limited opportunities for acquiring a reputation 
in the world ; yet, by degrees, the superior value of his labors 
became appreciated, and he was visited by such men of science 
as travelled in the neighborhood of his dwelling. By one of these 
a knowledge of his merits was conveyed to M. Frauenhofer, the 
chief of a celebrated manufactory for optical instruments, estab- 
lished at Benedictbeurn, in Bavaria. This gentleman having, in 
consequence, obtained some discs of glass made by Guinand, 
found their quality so satisfactory, that he repaired in person to 
Brenets, where Guinand resided, and engaged him to settle in 
Bavaria. This was in 1805, when Guinand was upwards of sixty 
years of age. He continued at this place during nine years, oc- 
cupied solely in the manufacture of glass, to the great increase of 
his employer''s reputation. 

Being desirous, at the end of this time, to return to his native 
land, a pension was granted to him by the establishment, on con- 
dition that he should no longer employ himself in making glass, 
nor disclose his process to any person whatever ; a condition 
which did not long agree with the still active energies of his mind. 
Believing, by new experiments, he could raise his discovery to a 
yet higher degree of improvement, he obtained the consent of 
Frauenhofer, to cancel their subsisting agreement ; and, relin- 
quishing his pension, once again devoted himself with ardor to his 
favorite pursuit. 

He lived seven years after this time, and produced several 



276 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

telescopes of great magnitude, and remarkable for their excellence ; 
it being perhaps not the least extraordinary among the circum- 
stances attending them, that, to use the words of the memoir from 
whence the foregoing account is drawn, " they have been con- 
structed by an old man upwards of seventy, who himself manu- 
factures the flint and crown glass which he uses in their construc- 
tion, after having made, with his own hands, the vitrifying furnace 
and his crucibles ; who, without any mathematical knowledge, 
devises a graphic method of ascertaining the proportions of the 
curves that must be given to the lenses, afterwards works and 
polishes them by means peculiar himself, and lastly, constructs 
all the parts of the different mountings either with joints or with 
stands, melts and turns the plates, solders the tube, prepares the 
wood, and compounds the varnish." 

M. Guinand died in 1823, in his eightieth year. The preced- 
ing pages show how greatly his loss is to be deplored. After 
half a century of research, he was the only man in Europe who 
had succeeded in obtaining large specimens of that jiint glass 
which is so indispensable for the construction of achromatic lenses, 
and at the same time so difficult to obtain free from striae in any 
considerable magnitude. Arrangements had been made by the 
French government for purchasing his secret at the time of his 
death. In the latter part of his life he was assailed by infirmities 
incident to his multifarious labors and advanced age. It is to be 
lamented, that after sacrificing so much to his art, so much more 
than could have been expected from a man in his circumstances, 
he should derive from them so little advantage ; and lastly, it is 
painful to think that this man, in attaching so little importance to 
the honor of his discovery, should not have made it more exten^ 
sively known, and connected it more closely with his name ; since 
it is a discovery which, by the perfection it imparts to telescopes, 
opens the way to very important acquisitions in the vast field which 
the heavens still offer to optical instruments in a state of perfection 
The secret, however, did not die with him, but is possessed by his 
son, who continues to labor in the employment so singularly 
commenced, and so energetically and successfully followed by the 
father. 




JAMES WATT. 



JAMES WATT. 

" Nature, in her productions slow, aspires 
By just degrees to reach perfection's height 
So mimic art works leisurely, till time 
Improve the price, or wise experience give 
The proper finisliing." 

All the inventions and improvements of recent times, if mea. 
sured by their effects upon the condition of society, sink into insig. 
mficance, when compared with the extraordinary results which 
have followed the employment of steam as a mechanical agent 
To one mdividual, the illustrious James Watt, the merit and honor 
of having first rendered it extensively available for that purpose are 
pre-emmently due. The force of steam, now so important an agent 
m mechanics, was nearly altogether overlooked until within the 
two last centuries. The only application of it which appears to 
have been made by the ancients, was in the construction of the 
mstrument which they called the iEolipile, that is, the Ball of 
-<Eolus. The ^olipile consisted of a hollow globe of metal, with 
a long neck, terminatmg in a veiy small orifice, which, being filled 
with water and placed on a fire, exhibited the steam, as it was 
generated by the heat, rushing with apparently great force through 
the narrow opening. A common teakettle, in fact, is a sort of 
iEohpile. The only use which the ancients proposed to make of 
this contrivance was, to apply the current of steam, as it issueS 
from the spout, by way of a moving force— to propel, for instance, 
the vans of a mill, or, by acting immediately upon the air, to gene- 
rate a movement opposite to its own direction. But it was impos- 
sible that they should have efiected any useful purpose by such 
methods of employing steam. Steam depends so entirely for its 
existence in the state of vapor upon the presence of a large quan- 
tity of heat, that it is reduced to a mist or a fluid almost imme- 
diately on coming mto contact either with the atmosphere, or any 
thing else which is colder than itself; and in this condition its 
expansive force is gone. The only way of employing steam with 
much effect, therefore, is to make it act in a close vessel. The 
first known writer who alludes to the prodigious energy which it 
exerts when thus confined, is the French engineer Solomon de 
Caus, who flourished in the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
This ingenious person, who came to England in 1612, in the train 
of the Elector Palatine, afterwards the son-in-law of James I., 
where he resided for some years, published a folio volume at Parig^ 



280 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

in 1623, on moving forces ; in which he states, that if water be 
sufficiently heated in a close ball of copper, the air or steam arising 
from it will at last burst the ball, with a noise like the going off of 
a petard. In another place, he actually describes a method of 
raising water, as he expresses it, by the aid of fire, which consists 
in the insertion, in the containing vessel, of a perpendicular tube, 
reaching nearly to its bottom, through which, he says, all the water 
will rise, when sufficiently heated. The agent here is the steam 
produced from part of the water by the heat, which, acting by its 
expansive force upon the rest of the water, forces it to make its 
escape in a jet through the tube. The supply of the water is kept 
up through a cock in the side of the vessel. Forty years after the 
publication of the work of De Caus appeared the Marquis of Wor- 
cester's famous " Century of Inventions." Of the hundred new 
discoveries here enumerated, the sixty-eighth is entitled " An ad- 
mirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire." As far 
as may be judged from the vague description which the marquis 
gives us of his apparatus, it appears to have been constructed upon 
the same principle with that formerly proposed by De Caus ; but 
his account of the effect produced is considerably more precise 
than what we find in the work of his predecessor. " I have seen 
the water run," says he, " hke a constant fountain-stream forty 
feet high ; one vessel of water rarified by fire, driveth up forty of 
cold water." This language would imply that the marquis had 
actually reduced his idea to practice ; and if, as he seems to inti- 
mate, he made use of a cannon for his boiler, the experiment was 
probably upon a considerable scale. It is with some justice, there- 
fore, that notwithstanding the earlier amiouncements in the work 
of the French engineer, he is generally regarded as the first person 
who really constructed a steam engine. 

About twenty years after this, namely, in the year 1683, Sir 
Samuel Morland appears to have presented a work to the French 
king, containing, among other projects, a method of employing 
steam as a mechanic power, which he expressly says he had him- 
self invented the preceding year. The manuscript of this work is 
now in the British Museum ; but it is remarkable that when the 
work, which is in French, was afterwards published by its author 
at Paris, in 1685, the passage about the steam engine was omitted. 
Sir Samuel Morland 's invention, as we find it described in his 
manuscript treatise, appears to have been merely a repetition of 
those of his predecessors, De Caus and the Marquis of Worcester ; 
but his statement is curious as being the first in which the immense 
difference between the space occupied by water in its natural state 
and that which it occupies in the state of steam is numerically de- 



JAMES WATT. 281 

signated. The latter, he says, is about two thousand times as 
great as the former ; which is not far from a correct account of 
the expansive force that steam exerts under the ordinary pressure 
of the atmosphere. One measure of water, it is found in such 
circumstances, will produce about seventeen hundred measures 
of steam. 

The next person whose name occurs in the history of the steam 
engine, is Denis Papin, a native of France, but who spent the part 
of his life during which he made his principal pneumatic experi- 
ments in England. Up to this time, the reader wiU observe, the 
steam had been applied directly to the surface of the water, to 
raise which, in the form of a jet, by such pressure, appears to have 
been almost the only object contemplated by the employment of 
the newly discovered power. It was Papin who first introduced a 
piston into the tube or cylinder which rose from the boiler. This 
contrivance, which forms an essential part of the common sucking- 
pump, is merely, as the reader probably knows, a block fitted to 
any tube or longitudinal cavity, so as to move freely up and down 
in it, yet without permitting the passage of any other substance 
between itself and the sides of the tube. To this block a rod is 
generally fixed ; and it may also have a hole driven through it, to 
be guarded by a valve, opening upwards or downwards, according 
to the object in view. Long before the time of Papin it had been 
proposed to raise weights, or heavy bodies of any kind, by sus- 
pending them to one extremity of a handle or cross-beam attached 
at its other end to the rod of a piston moving in this manner in a 
hollow cylinder, and the descent of which, in order to produce the 
elevation of the weights, was to be effected by the pressure of the 
superincumbent atmosphere after the counterbalancing air had been 
by some means or other withdrawn from below it. Otto Guericke 
used to exhaust the lower part of the cylinder, in such an appa- 
ratus, by means of an air-pump. It appeared to Papin that some 
other method might be found of effecting this end more expedi- 
tiously and with less labor. First he tried to produce the requisite 
vacuum by the explosion of a small quantity of gunpowder in the 
bottom of the cylinder, the momentary flame occasioned by which 
he thought would expel the air through a valve opening upwards 
in the piston, while the immediate fall of the valve, on the action 
of the flame being spent, would prevent its re-intrusion. But he 
never was able to effect a very complete vacuum by this method. 
He then, about the year 1690, bethought him of making use of 
steam for that purpose. This vapour, De Caus had long ago re- 
marked, was recondensed and restored to the state of water by 
cold ; but up to this time the attention of no person seems to have 



282 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

been awakened to the important advantage that might be taken of 
this one of its properties. Papin for the first time availed himself 
of it in his lifting machine, to produce the vacuum he wanted. 
Introducing a small quantity of water into the bottom of his cylin- 
der, he heated it by a fire underneath, till it boiled and gave forth 
steam, which, by its powerful expansion, raised the piston from its 
original position in contact with the water, to a considerable height 
above it, even in opposition to the pressure of the atmosphere on 
its other side. This done, he then removed the fire, on which the 
steam again became condensed into water, and, occupying now 
about the seventeen hundredth part of its former dimensions, left 
a vacant space through which the piston was carried down by its 
own gravitation and the pressure of the atmosphere. 

The machine thus proposed by Papin was abundantly defective 
in the subordinate parts of its mechanism, and, unimproved, could 
not have operated with much effect. But, imperfect as it was, it 
exemplified two new principles of the highest importance, neither 
of which appears to have been thought of, in the application of the 
power of steam, before his time. The first is the communication 
of the moving force of that agent to bodies upon which it cannot 
conveniently act directly, by means of the piston and its rod. 
The second is the deriving of the moving force desired, not from 
the expansion of steam, but from its other equally valuable property 
of condensibility by mere exposure to cold. Papin, however, it is 
curious enough, afterwards abandoned his piston and method of 
condensation, and reverted to the old plan of making the steam act 
directly by its expansive force upon the water to be raised. It is 
doubtful, however, whether he ever actually erected any working 
engine upon either of these constructions. Indeed, the improve- 
ment of the steam engine could scarcely be said to have been the 
principal object of those experiments of his which, nevertheless, 
contributed so greatly to that result. It was, in fact, as we have 
seen, with the view of perfecting a machine contrived originally 
without any reference to the application of steam, that he was first 
induced to have recourse to the powers of that agent. The moving 
force with which he set out was the pressure of the atmosphere ; 
and he employed steam merely as a means of enabling that other 
power to act. Even by such a seemingly subordinate application, 
however, of the new element, he happily discovered and bequeathed 
to his successors the secret of some of its most valuable capa- 
bilities. 

We may here conveniently notice another ingenious contrivance, 
of essential service in the steam engine, for which we are also in- 
debted to Papin — ^we mean the safety-valve. This is merely a lid 



JAMES WATT. 283 

or stopper, closing an aperture in the boiler, and so loaded as to 
resist the expansive force of the steam up to a certain point, while, 
at the same time, it must give way and allow free vent to the 
pent-up element, long before it can have acquired sufficient strength 
to burst the boiler. The safety-valve, however, was not introduced 
into the steam engine either by Papin, or for some years after his 
time. It was employed by him only in the apparatus stiU. known 
by the name of his digester, a contrivance for producing a very 
powerful heat in cookeiy and chemical preparations, by means of 
highly concentrated steam. 

We now come to the engine invented by Captain Savery in 
1698. This gentleman, we are told, having one day drank a flask 
of Florence wine at a tavern, afterwards threw the empty flask 
upon the fire, when he was struck by perceiving that the small 
quantity of liquid still left in it very soon filled it with steam, under 
the influence of the heat. Taking it up again while thus fuU of 
vapor, he now plunged it, with the mouth downwards, into a basin 
of cold water which happened to be on the table ; by which means 
the steam being instantly concentrated, a vacuum was produced 
within the flask, into which the water immediately rushed up from 
the basin. According to another version of the story, it was the 
accidental circumstance of his immersing a heated tobacco-pipe 
into water, and perceiving the water immediately rush up through 
the tube, on the concentration by the cold of the warm and thin 
air, that first suggested to Savery the important use that might be 
made of steam, or any other gas expanded by heat, as a means 
of creating a vacuum. He did not, however, employ steam for 
this purpose in the same manner that Papin had done. Instead 
of a piston moving under the pressure of the atmosphere through 
the vacuum produced by the concentration of the steam, he availed 
himself of such a vacuum merely to permit the rise of the water 
into it from the well or mine below, exactly as in the common 
sucking-pump. Having thus raised the water to the level of the 
boiler, he afterwards allowed it to flow into another vessel, from 
whence he sent it to a greater height by the same method which 
had been many years before employed by the Marquis of Worces- 
ter, — namely, by making the expansive force of the steam act upon 
it directly, and so force it up in opposition to its own gravity and 
the resistance of the atmosphere. 

Savery showed much ingenuity and practical skill in contriving 
means of facilitating and improving the working of the apparatus 
which he had devised upon these principles ; and many of his en- 
gines were erected for supplying gentlemen's houses with water 
and other purposes, in different parts of the countiy. The ma- 

20 



284 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

chine also received many improvements after the death of the 
original inventor. It was considerably simplified, in particular, 
by Dr. Desaguliers, about the year 1718 ; and this gentleman also 
contrived a method of concentrating the steam by the injection of 
a small current of cold water into the receiver, instead of the old 
method employed by Savery, of dashing the water over the outside 
of the vessel, which cooled it to an unnecessary degree, and occa- 
sioned, therefore, a wasteful expenditure of fuel. It was Desagu- 
liers who first introduced the safety-valve into the steam engine, 
although Papin had previously suggested such an application of the 
contrivance. Engines upon Savery''s principle have continued to 
be constructed, down to our own times ; and as they can be made 
at a comparatively small expense, they are found to answer very 
well in situations where water has to be raised only a short way. 
This engine is, in fact, merely a combination of the common 
sucking-pump, (except that the requisite vacuum is produced by 
the condensation of steam and without the aid of a piston,) with 
the contrivance proposed by De Caus and the Marquis of Wor- 
cester for the application of the expansive force of steam ; and, 
wherever the machine can be economically employed, the former 
part of it is that which operates with by far the most effect. 

Not long after Savery had invented his engine, Thomas New- 
comen, an ironmonger, and John Galley, a glazier, both of Dart- 
mouth, in Devonshire, began also to direct their attention to the 
employment of steam as a mechanic power. Their first engine 
was constructed about the year 1711. This contrivance, which is 
commonly known by the name of Newcomen's engine, proceeded 
mainly upon the principle formerly adopted by Papin, but subse- 
quently abandoned both by him and those who immediately fol- 
lowed him in the cultivation of this department of mechanics, of 
making the moving power of the machinery the weight of the 
atmosphere acting upon a piston, so as to carry it down through a 
vacuum created by the condensation of the steam. Newcomen''s 
apparatus is, on this account, often distinguished by the name of 
the Atmospheric engine. Its inventors, however, instead of adopt- 
ing Papin's clumsy method of cooling his steam by the removal of 
the fire, employed, in the first instance, the expedient of pouring 
cold water on the containing vessel, as Savery had done before 
them, though without being aware, it is said, of hi.s prior claim to 
the improvement. They afterwards exchanged this fcr the still 
better method, already described as introduced by Desaguliers into 
Savory's engine, of injecting a stream of water into the cylinder, 
which is said to have been suggested to them by the accident of 
some water having found admission to the steam through a hole 



JAMES WATT. 285 

which happened to have worn itself in the piston. This engine 
of Newcomen, which, in the course of a very few years after its 
invention, was brought to as high a state of perfection as the prin- 
ciple seems to admit of, afforded the first important exemphfica- 
tion of the value of steam in mechanics. Savery''s, the only other 
practical contrivance which had been proposed, had been found 
quite inadequate to the raising of water from any considerable 
depth, its principal power, as we have already remarked, lying, 
in fact, in the part of it which acted as a sucking-pump, and by 
vv'hich, as such, water could only be raised till its column was of 
equal weight with a column of the atmosphere of the same base. 
It was nearly useless, therefore, as an apparatus for pumping up 
water from mmes ; the grand object for which a moving force of 
extraordinary power was at this time in demand. But here New- 
comen's engine proved of essential service. Many mines that had 
long remained unwrought, were, immediately after its invention, 
again rendered accessible, and gradually excavated to great depths ; 
while others were opened, and their treasures sought after with 
equal success, which but for its assistance could never have been 
attempted. It was applied also to various other important pur- 
poses. 

Newcomen 's engine, however, notwithstanding its usefulness, 
especially in cases where no other known power could be applied, 
was still in some respects a very defective contrivance, and by no 
means adapted to secure the complete command of the energies 
of steam. The great waste of fuel, in particular, which was still 
occasioned by the degree to which the cylinder was cooled after 
every stroke of the piston, from the cold water injected into it, 
rendered it scarcely any saving of expense to employ this engine 
in circumstances where animal power was available. Its whole 
force too, the reader will observe, as a moving power, was limited 
to what could be obtained by atmospheric pressure alone, which, 
even could the vacuum under the piston have been rendered quite 
perfect, and all obstructions from friction annihilated, could only 
have amounted to about fifteen pounds for every square-inch of 
the surface of the piston. The expansive force of steam was 
not, in fact, at all employed in this contrivance as a moving 
power ; could the vacuum necessary to permit the descent of the 
piston have been as expeditiously and conveniently produced by 
any other agency, that of steam might have been dispensed with 
altogether. An air-pump, for instance, attached to the lower part 
of the cylinder, as origmally proposed by Otto Guericke, might 
have rendered all the service which steam was here called upon 
to perform ; and in that case, this element, with the fuel by which 



28a FOREIGN MECHANICS 

it was generated, might have been dispensed with, and the machine 
would not have been a steam engine at all. This view of the 
matter may, in some degree, account for the complete neglect of 
steam as a moving power which so long prevailed after Newco- 
men''s engine was brought into use, notwithstanding the proofs of 
its capabilities in that character which had been afforded by the 
attempts of the earlier speculators. It was now regarded simply 
as affording the easiest means of obtaining a ready vacuum, in 
consequence of its property of rapid condensation on the apphca- 
tion of cold : its other property of extraordinary expansion, which 
had first attracted to it the attention of mechanicians, and pre- 
sented in reality a much more obvious application of it as a me- 
chanical agent, had been entirely neglected. The only improve- 
ments of the engine which were attempted or thought of were 
such as referred to what may be called its subordinate mechanism, 
that is to say, the contrivances for facilitating the alternate sup- 
plies of the steam and the water on which its action depended ; 
and after Mr. Beighton had, about the year 1718, made the ma- 
chine itself shut and open the cocks by which these supplies were 
regulated, instead of having that service performed as at first by 
an attendant, there remained little more to be done even in this 
department. The steam might be applied with more ease and 
readiness, but not with any augmentation of effect ; the power of 
the engine could be increased only by a more plentiful application 
of atmospheric pressure. It was with propriety, therefore, that 
Newcomen''s invention was called, not a steam, but an atmospheric, 
engine. 

For half a century, accordingly, after the improvements intro- 
duced by Beighton, who may be considered as the perfecter of 
this engine, no farther progress worth mentioning was made in 
the application of steam as an agent in mechanics. The engine 
itself was more and more extensively employed, notwithstanding 
its defects ; but no better method was proposed of calling into 
exercise the stupendous powers of the element, which, by means 
of only one of its remarkable properties, was here shown to be 
capable of rendering such valuable service. Our knowledge of 
what might be done by steam was in this state when the subject 
at last happily attracted the attention of Mr. Watt. 

James Watt was born at Grfienock, on the 19th of January, 
1736. His father was a merchant, and also one of the magis- 
trates of that town. He received the rudiments of his education 
in his native place ; but his health being even then extremely 
delicate, as it continued to be to the end of his life, his attend. 
ance at school was not always very regular. He amply made up, 



JAMES WATT 287 

however, for what he lost in this way by the diligence with which 
he pursued his studies at home, where without any assistance he 
succeeded at a very early age in making considerable proficiency 
in various branches of knowledge. Even at this time his favorite 
study is said to have been mechanical science, to a love of which 
he was probably in some degree led by the example of his grand- 
father and his uncle, both of whom had been teachers of the 
mathematics, and had left a considerable reputation for learning 
and ability in that department. Young Watt, however, was not 
indebted to any instructions of theirs for his own acquirements 
in science, the former having died two years before, and the latter 
the year after, he was born. At the age of eighteen he was sent 
to London to be apprenticed to a maker of mathematical instru- 
ments ; but in little more than a year the state of his health forced 
him to return to Scotland ; and he never received any farther in- 
struction in his profession. A year or two after this, however, a 
visit which he paid to some relations in Glasgow suggested to him 
the plan of attempting to establish himself in that city in the line 
for which he had been educated. In 1757, accordingly, he re- 
moved thither, and was immediately appointed mathematical in- 
strument maker to the College. In this situation he remained for 
some years, during which, notwithstanding almost constant ill- 
health, he continued both to prosecute his profession, and to labor 
in the general cultivation of his mind, with extraordinary ardor 
and perseverance. Here also he enjoyed the friendship and inti- 
macy of several distinguished persons who were then members 
of the University, especially of the celebrated Dr. Black, the dis- 
coverer of the principle of latent heat, and Mr. (afterwards Dr.) 
John Robison, so well known by his treatises on mechanical 
science, who was then a student and about the same age with 
himself Honorable, however, as his pi'esent appointment was, 
and important as were many of the advantages to which it in- 
troduced him, he probably did not find it a very lucrative one ; 
and therefore, in 1763, when about to marry, he removed from 
his apartments in the University to a house in the city, and entered 
upon the profession of a general engineer. 

For this his genius and scientific attainments admirably qualified 
him. Accordingly, he soon acquired a high reputation, and was 
extensively employed in making surveys and estimates for canals, 
harbors, bridges, and other public works. His advice and assist- 
ance indeed were sought for in almost all the important improve- 
ments of this description which were now undertaken or proposed 
in his native country. But another pursuit, in which he had been 
for some time privately engaged, was destined ere long to with- 

13 



288 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

draw him from this line of exertion, and to occupy his whole 
mind with an object still more worthy of its extraordinary powers. 

While yet residing in the College his attention had been directed 
to the employment of steam as a mechanical agent by some spe- 
culations of his friend Mr. Robison, with regard to the practica- 
bility of applying it to the movement of wheel-carriages ; and he 
had also himself made some experiments with Papin''s digester, 
with the view of ascertaining its expansive force. He had not 
prosecuted the inquiry, however, so far as to have arrived at any 
determinate result, when, in the winter of 1763-4, a small model 
of Newcomen's engine was sent to him by the Professor of Natural 
Philosophy to be repaired, and fitted for exhibition in the class. 
The examination of this model set Watt upon thinking anew, and 
with more interest than ever, on the powers of steam. 

The first thing that attracted his attention about the machine 
before him, the cylinder of which was only of two inches diameter, 
while the piston descended through six inches, was the insuffi- 
ciency of the boiler, although proportionably a good deal larger 
than in the working engines, to supply the requisite quantity of 
steam for the creation of the vacuum. In order to remedy this 
defect he was obliged, in repairing the model, to diminish the 
column of water to be raised ; in other words, to give the piston 
less to do, in compensation for its having to descend, not through 
a perfect vacuum, but in opposition to a considerable residue of 
undisplaced air. He also soon discovered the reason why in this 
instance the steam sent up from the boiler was not sufficient to 
fill the cylinder. In the first place, this containing vessel, being 
made, not of cast-iron^ as in the larger engines, but of brass, 
abstracted more of the heat from the steam, and so weakened its 
expansion ; and secondly, it exposed a much larger surface to the 
steam, in proportion to its capacity, than the cylinders of the 
larger engines did, and this operated still more strongly to produce 
the same effect. Led by the former of these considerations, he 
made some experiments in the first instance with the view of dis- 
covering some other material whereof to form the cylinder of the 
engine which should be less objectionable than either brass or 
cast-iron ; and he proposed to substitute wood, soaked in oil, and 
baked dry. But his speculations soon took a much wider scope ; 
and, struck with the radical imperfections of the atmospheric 
engine, he began to turn in his mind the possibility of employing 
steam in mechanics, in some new manner which should enable it 
to operate v/ith much more powerful effect. This idea having got 
possession of him, he engaged in an extensive course of experi- 
raents, for the purpose of ascertaining as many facts as possible 



JAMES WATT. 289 

with regard to the properties of steam ; and the pains he took in 
this investigation were rewarded with several valuable discoveries. 
The- rapidity with which water evaporates, he found, for instance, 
depended simply upon the quantity of heat which was made to 
enter it ; and this again on the extent of the surface exposed to 
the fire. He also ascertained the quantity of coals necessary for 
the evaporation of any given quantity of water, the heat at which 
water boils under various pressures, and many other particulars 
of a similar kind which had never before been accurately de- 
termined. 

Thus prepared by a complete knowledge of the properties of 
the agent with which he had to work, he next proceeded to take 
into consideration, with a view to their amendment, what he 
deemed the two grand defects of Newcomen's engine. The first 
of these was the necessity arising from the method employed to 
concentrate the steam, of cooling the cylinder, before every stroke 
of the piston, by the water injected into it. On this account, a 
much more powerful application of heat than would otherwise 
have been requisite was demanded for the purpose of again heat- 
ing that vessel when it was to be refilled with steam. In fact, 
Watt ascertained that there was thus occasioned, in the feeding 
of the machine, a waste of not less than three fourths of the 
whole fuel employed. If the cylinder, instead of being thus 
cooled for every stroke of the piston, could be kept permanently 
hot, a fourth part of the heat which had been hitherto applied 
would be found to be sufficient to produce steam enough to fill it. 
How, then, was this desideratum to be attained ? De Caus had 
proposed to effect the condensation of the steam by actually re- 
moving the furnace from under the boiler before every stroke of 
the piston ; but this, in a working engine, evidently would have 
been found quite impracticable. Savery, the first who really con- 
structed a working engine, and whose arrangements, as we have 
already remarked, all showed a very superior ingenuity, employed 
the method of throwing cold water over the outside of the vessel 
containing his steam — a perfectly manageable process, but at the 
same time a very wasteful one ; inasmuch as every time it was 
repeated, it cooled not only the steam, but the vessel also, which, 
therefore, had again to be heated, by a large expenditure of fuel, 
before the steam could be reproduced. Newcomen's method of 
injecting the water into the cylinder was a considerable improve- 
ment on this ; but it was still objectionable on the same ground, 
though not to the same degree ; it still cooled not only the steam, 
On which it was desired to produce that effect, but also the cylin- 
der itself, which, as the vessel in v/hich more steam was to be 



2Q0 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

immediately manufactured, it was so important to keep hot. It 
was also a very serious objection to this last mentioned plan, that 
the injected water itself, from the heat of the place into which it 
was thrown, was very apt to be partly converted into steam ; and 
the more cold water was used, the more considerable did this 
creation of new steam become. In fact, in the best of Newco- 
men's engines, the perfection of the vacuum was so greatly im- 
paired from this cause, that the resistance experienced by the 
piston in its descent was found to amount to about a fourth part 
of the whole atmospheric pressure by which it was carried down, 
or, in other words, the working power of the machine wa.s thereby 
diminished one fourth. 

After reflecting for some time upon all this, it at last occurred 
to Watt to consider whether it might not be possible, instead of 
continuing to condense the steam in the cylinder, to contrive a 
method of drawing it off, to undergo that operation in some other 
vessel. This fortunate idea having presented itself to his thoughts, 
it was not very long before his ingenuity also suggested to him 
the means of realizing it. In the course of one or two days, ac- 
cording to his own account, he had all the necessary apparatus 
arranged in his mind. The plan which he devised, indeed, was 
an extremely simple one, and on that account the more beautiful. 
He proposed to establish a communication by an open pipe be- 
tween the cylinder and another vessel, the consequence of which 
evidently would be, that when the steam was admitted into the 
former, it would flow into the latter so as to fill it also. If then 
the portion in this latter vessel only should be subjected to a con- 
densing process, by being brought into contact with cold water, 
or any other convenient means, what would follow ? Why, a 
vacuum would be produced here — into that, as a vent, more steam 
would immediately rush from the cylinder — that Ukewise would 
be condensed — and so the process would go on till all the steam 
had left the cylinder, and a perfect vacuum had been effected in 
that vessel, without so much as a drop of cold water having 
touched or entered it. The separate vessel alone, or the Con- 
denser, as Watt called it, would be cooled by the water used to 
condense the steam — and that, instead of being an evil, manifestly 
tended to promote and quicken the condensation. When Watt 
reduced these views to the test of experiment, he found the result 
to answer his most sanguine expectations. The cylinder, al- 
though emptied of its steam for every stroke of the piston as 
before, was now constantly kept at the same temperature with the 
steam (or 212° Fahrenheit;) and the consequence was, that one 
fourth of the fuel formerly required sufficed to feed the engine. 



JAMES WATT. 291 

But besides this most important saving in the expense of main, 
taining the engine, its power was greatly increased by the more 
perfect vacuum produced by the new construction, in which the 
condensing water, being no longer admitted within the cylinder, 
could not, as before, create new steam there while displacing the 
old. The first method which Watt adopted of cooling the steam 
in the condenser, was to keep that vessel surrounded by cold 
water — considering it as an objection to the admission of the water 
into its interior, that it might be difficult in that case to convey it 
away as fast as it would accumulate. But he found that the con- 
densation was not effected in this manner with so much rapidity 
as was desirable. It was necessary for him, too, at any rate to 
employ a pump attached to the condenser, in order to draw off 
both the small quantity of water deposited by the cooled steam, 
and the air unavoidably introduced by the same element — either 
of which, if allowed to accumulate, would have impaired the per- 
feet vacuum necessary to attract the steam from the cylinder. 
He therefore determined eventually to admit also the additional 
quantity of water required for the business of condensation, and 
merely to employ a larger and more powerful pump to carry off 
the whole. 

Such, then, was the remedy by which the genius of this great 
inventor effectually cured the first and most serious defect of the 
old apparatus. In carrymg his ideas into execution, he encoun- 
tered, as was to be expected, many difficulties, arising principally 
from the impossibility of realizing theoretical perfection of struc- 
ture with such materials as human art is obliged to work with ; 
but his ingenuity and perseverance overcame every obstacle. 
One of the things which cost him the greatest trouble was, how to 
fit the piston so exactly to the cylinder as without affecting the 
freedom of its motion, to prevent the passage of the air between 
the two. In the old engine this end had been attained by cover- 
ing the piston with a small quantity of water, the dripping down 
of which into the space below, where it merely mixed with the 
stream introduced to effect the condensation, was of little or no 
consequence. But in the new construction, the superiority of 
which consisted in keeping this receptacle for the steam always 
both hot and dry, such an effusion of moisture, although only in 
very small quantities, would have occasioned material inconve- 
nience. The air alone, besides, which in the old engine followed 
the piston in its descent, acted with considerable effect in cooling 
the lower pai't of the cylinder. His attempts to overcome this 
difficulty, while they succeeded in that object, conducted Watt 
also to another improvement, which effected the complete removal 



293 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

of what we have called the second radical imperfection of New- 
comen's engine, namely, its non-employment, for a moving power, 
of the expansive force of the steam. The effectual way, it oc- 
curred to him, of preventing any air from escaping into the part 
of the cylinder below the piston, would be to dispense with the use 
of that element above the piston, and to substitute there likewise 
the same contrivance as below, of alternate steam and vacuum. 
This was of course to be accomplished by merely opening com- 
munications from the upper part of the cylinder to the boiler on 
the one hand, and the condenser on the other, and forming it at 
the same time into an air-tight chamber, by means of a cover, 
with only a hole in it to admit the rod or shank of the piston, 
which might besides, without impeding its freedom of action, be 
padded with hemp, the more completely to exclude the air. It 
was so contrived, accordingly, by a proper arrangement of the 
cocks and the machinery connected with them, that, while there 
was a vacuum in one end of the cylinder, there should be an ad- 
mission of steam into the other ; and the steam so admitted now 
served, not only, by its susceptibility of sudden condensation, to 
create the vacuum, but also, by its expansive force, to impel the 
piston. Steam, in fact, was now restored to be, what it had been 
in the early attempts to use it as a mechanical agent, the moving 
power of the engine ; but its efficiency in this capacity was for the 
first time both taken full advantage of, by means of contrivances 
properly arranged for that end, and combined with, and aided by, 
its other equally valuable property which had alone been called 
into action in the more recent machines. 

These were the great impi'ovements which Watt introduced in 
what may be called the principle of the steam engine, or, in other 
words, in the manner of using and applying the steam. They 
constitute, therefore, the grounds of his claim to be regarded as the 
true author of the conquest that has at last been obtained by man 
over this powerful element. But original and comprehensive as 
were the views out of which these fundamental inventions arose, 
the exquisite and inexhaustible ingenuity which the engine, as 
finally perfected by him, displays in every part of its subordinate 
mechanism, is calculated to strike us perhaps with scarcely less 
admiration. It forms undoubtedly the best exemplification that 
has ever been afforded of the number and diversity of services 
which a piece of machinery may be made to render to itself by 
means solely of the various application of its first moving power, 
when that has once been called into action. Of these contrivances, 
however, we can only notice one or two, by way of specimen. 
Perhaps the most, singular is that called the governor. This con 



JAMES WATT. 293 

sists of an upright spindle, which is kept constantly turning, by 
being connected with a certain part of the machinery, and from 
which two balls are suspended in opposite directions by rods, 
attached by joints, somewhat in the manner of the legs of a pair 
tongs. As long as the motion of the engine is uniform, that of 
the spindle is so likewise, and the balls continue steadily revolving 
at the same distance from each other. But as soon as any altera- 
tion in the action of the piston takes place, the balls, if it has be- 
come more rapid, fly farther apart under the influence of the in- 
creased centrifugal force which actuates them — or approach 
nearer to each other in the opposite circumstances. This alone 
would have served to indicate the state of matters to the eye ; but 
Watt was not to be satisfied. He connected the rods with a valve 
in the tube by which the steam is admitted to the cylinder from 
the boiler, in such a way that, as they retreat from each other, 
they gradually narrow the opening which is so guarded, or en- 
large it as they tend to collapse ; thus diminishing the supply of 
steam whea the engine is going too fast, and, when it is not going 
fast enough, enabling it to regain its proper speed by allowing it 
an increase of aliment. Again, the constant supply of a suffi- 
ciency of water to the boiler is secured by an equally simple pro- 
vision, namely, by a jioat resting on the surface of the water, 
which, as soon as it is carried down by the consumption of the 
water to a certain point, opens a valve and admits more. And so 
on through all the different parts of the apparatus, the various 
wonders of which cannot be better summed up than in the forcible 
and graphic language of a recent writer : — " In the present per- 
feet state of the engine, it appears a thing almost endowed with 
intelligence. It regulates with perfect accuracy and uniformity 
the number of its strokes in a given time, counting or recording 
them moreover, to tell how much work it has done, as a clock 
records the beats of its pendulum ; it regulates the quantity of 
steam admitted to work ; the briskness of the fire ; the supply of 
water to the boiler ; the supply of coals to the fire ; it opens and 
shuts its valves with absolute precision as to time and manner ; it 
oils its joints ; it takes out any air which may accidentally enter 
into parts which should be vacuous ; and when any thing goes 
wrong which it cannot of itself rectify, it warns its attendants by 
ringing a bell ; yet with all these talents and qualities, and even 
when exerting the power of six hundred horses, it is obedient to 
the hand of a child ; its aliment is coal, wood, charcoal, or other 
combustible, — it consumes none while idle, — it never tires, and 
wants no sleep ; it is not subject to malady when originally well 
made, and only refuses to work when warn out with age ; it is 



294 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

equally active in all climates, and will do work of any kind ; it is 
a water-pumper, a miner, a sailor, a cotton-spinner, a weaver, a 
blacksmith, a miller, &c. &c. ; and a small engine, in the charac- 
ter of a steam pony, may be seen dragging after it, on a railroad, 
a hundred tons of merchandise, or a regiment of soldiers, with 
greater speed than that of our fleetest coaches. It is the king of 
machines, and a permanent realization of the Genii of eastern 
fable, whose supernatural powers were occasionally at the com- 
mand of man." 

In addition to those difficulties which his unrivalled mechanical 
ingenuity enabled him to surmount, Watt, notwithstanding the 
merit of his inventions, had to contend for some time with others 
of a different nature, in his attempts to reduce them to practice. 
He had no pecuniary resources of his own, and was at first without 
any friend willing to run the risk of the outlay necessary for an 
experiment on a sufficiently large scale. At last he applied to Dr. 
Roebuck, an ingenious and spirited speculator, who had just esta- 
blished the Carron iron-works, not far from Glasgow, and held 
also at this time a lease of the extensive coal-works at Kinneal, the 
property of the Duke of Hamilton. Dr. Roebuck agreed to ad- 
vance the requisite funds on having two thirds of the profits made 
over to him ; and upon this Mr. Watt took out his first patent in 
the beginning of the year 1769. An engine with a cylinder of 
eighteen inches diameter was soon after erected at Kinneal ; and 
although, as a first experiment, it was necessarily in some respects 
of defective construction, its working completely demonstrated the 
great value of Watt's improvements. But Dr. Roebuck, whose 
undertakings were very numerous and various, in no long time 
after forming this connection, found himself involved in such pecu- 
niary difficulties, as to put it out of his power to make any farther 
advances in prosecution of its object. On this, Watt employed 
himself for some years almost entirely to the ordinary work of his 
profession as a civil engineer ; but at last, about the year 1774, 
when all hopes of any farther assistance from Dr. Roebuck were 
at an end, he resolved to close with a proposal which had been 
made to him through his friend Dr. Small, of Birmingham, that he 
should remove to that town, and enter into partnership with the 
eminent hardware manufacturer, Mr. Boulton, whose extensive 
establishment at Soho had already become famous over Europe, 
and procured for England an unrivalled reputation for the arts 
there carried on. Accordingly, an arrangement having been made 
with Dr. Roebuck, by which his share of the patent was transferred 
to Mr. Boulton, the firm of Boulton and Watt commenced the 
business of making steam engines in the year 1775. 



JAMES WATT. 295 

Mr. Watt now obtained from parliament an extension of his 
patent for twenty-five years from tliis date, in consideration of the 
acknowledged national importance of his inventions. The first 
thing which he and his partner did, was to erect an engine at Soho, 
which they invited all persons interested in such machines to in- 
spect. They then proposed to erect similar engines wherever 
requii'ed, on the very liberal principle of receiving as payment for 
each, only one third of the saving in fuel which it should effect, as 
2ompared with one of the old construction. As this saving, how- 
ever, had been found to amount in the whole to fully three fourths 
of all the fuel that had been wont to be employed, the revenue thug 
accruing to the patentees became very great after their engines 
were extensively adopted. This they very soon were, especially 
in Cornwall, where the numerous mines afforded a vast field for 
the employment of the new power, partly in continuing or com- 
mencing works vphich only an economized expenditure could make 
profitable, and oflen also in labors which the old engine was alto- 
gether inadequate to attempt. 

But the draining of mines was only one of many applications of 
the steam power now at his command which Watt contemplated, 
and in course of time accomplished. During the whole twenty- 
five years, indeed, over which his renewed patent extended, the 
perfecting of his invention was his chief occupation ; and, notwith= 
standing a delicate state of health, and the depressing affliction of 
severe headaches to which he was extremely subject, he continued 
throughout this period to persevere with unwearied diligence in 
adding new improvements to the mechanism of the engine, and 
devising the means of applying it to new purposes of usefulness. 
He devoted, in particular, the exertions of many years to the con- 
triving of the best methods of making the action of the piston com- 
municate a rotary motion in various circumstances ; and between 
the years 1781 and 1785 he took out four different patents for in- 
ventions having this object in view. In the midst of these scientific 
labors, too, his attention was much distracted by attempts which 
were made in several quarters to pirate his improvements, and the 
consequent necessity of defending his rights in a series of actions, 
which, notwithstanding successive verdicts in his favor, did not 
terminate till the year 1799, when the validity of his claims was 
finally confirmed by the unanimous decision of the Judges of the 
Court of King's Bench. 

Watt''s inexhaustible ingenuity displayed itself in various other 
contrivances besides those which make part of his steam engine. 
An apparatus for copying letters and other writings, now in exten- 
sive use ; a method of heating houses by steam ; a new composi. 

13* 



296 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

tion, for the purposes of sculpture, having the transparency and 
nearly the hardness of marble ; a machine for multiplying copies 
of busts and other performances in carving or statuary, — are 
enumerated among his minor inventions. But it is his steam- 
engine that forms the great monument of his genius, and that has 
conferred upon his name its imperishable renown. This invention 
has already gone far to revolutionize the whole domain of human 
industry ; and almost every year is adding to its power and its 
conquests. In our manufactures, our arts, our commerce, our 
social accommodations, it is constantly achieving what, little more 
than half a century ago, would have been accounted miracles and 
impossibilities. " The trunk of an elephant, it has been finely and 
truly said, that can pick up a pin, or rend an oak, is as nothing to 
it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like 
wax before it, — draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as 
gossamer, — and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can 
embroider muslin and forge anchors ; cut steal into ribbands, and 
impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves." 

Locomotives, under the impetus communicated by this, the most 
potent, and at the same time the most perfectly controllable of all 
our mechanical agencies, have already been drawn forward at the 
flying speed of thirty and forty miles an hour. If so much has 
been done already, it would be rash to conclude that even this is 
to be our ultimate limit of attainment. In navigation, the resist- 
ance of the water, which increases rapidly as the force opposed 
to it increases, very soon sets bounds to the rate at which even 
the power of steam can impel a vessel forward. But, on land, 
the thin medium of the air presents no such insurmountable ob- 
stacle to a force making its way through it ; and a rapidity of 
movement may perhaps be eventually attained here, which is to 
us even as yet inconceivable. But even when the rate of land 
travelling already shown to be quite practicable shall. have become 
universal, in what a new state of society shall we find ourselves ! 
When we shall be able to travel a hundred miles in any direction 
in six or eight hours, into what comparative neighborhood will 
the remotest extremes even of a large country be brought, and 
how little shall we think of what we now call distance ! A nation 
will then be indeed a community ; and all the benefits of the 
highest civilization, instead of being confined to one central spot, 
will be diffused equally over the land, like the light of heaven. 
This improvement, in short, when fully consummated, will confer 
upon man nearly as much new power and new enjoyment as if he 
were actually endowed with wings. 

It is gratifying to reflect that even while he was yet alive, Watt 



JAMES WATT. 297 

received from the voice of the most illustrious of his contempo. 
raries the honors due to his genius. In 1785 he was elected a 
Fellow of the Royal Society ; the degree of Doctor of Laws was 
conferred upon him by the University of Glasgow in 1806 ; and 
in 1808 he was elected a member of the French Institute. He 
died on the 25th of August, 1819, in the 84th year of his age. 

We cannot better conclude our sketch of the life of this great 
inventor than by the following extract from the character that has 
been drawn of him by the eloquent writer, (Mr. Jeffrey,) whom 
we have already quoted. " Independently of his great attain, 
ments in mechanics, Mr. Watt was an extraordinary, and in many 
respects a wonderful man. Perhaps no individual in his age pos- 
sessed so much and such varied and exact information, — had read 
so much, or remembered what he had read so accurately and well. 
He had infinite quickness of apprehension, a prodigious memory, 
and a certain rectifying and methodizing power of understanding, 
which extracted something precious out of all that was presented 
to it. His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense, and 
yet less astonishing than the command he had at all times over 
them. It seemed as if every subject that was casually started in 
conversation, had been that which he had been last occupied in 
studying and exhausting ; such was the copiousness, the precision, 
and the admirable clearness of the information which he poured 
out upon it without effort or hesitation. Nor was this prompti- 
tude and compass of knowledge confined in any degree to the 
studies connected with his ordinary pursuits. That he should 
have been minutely and extensively skilled in chemistry and the 
arts, and in most of the branches of physical science, might per- 
haps have been conjectured ; but it could not have been inferred 
from his usual occupations, and probably is not generally known, 
that he was curiously learned in many branches of antiquity, me- 
taphysics, medicine, and etymology, and perfectly at home in all 
the details of architecture, music, and law. He was well ac- 
quainted, too, with most of the modern languages, and familiar 
with their most recent literature. Nor was it at all extraordinary 
to hear the great mechanician and engineer detailing and ex- 
pounding, for hours together, the metaphysical theories of the 
German logicians, or criticising the measures or the matter of the 
German poetry. 

" His astonishing memory was aided, no doubt, in a great 
measure, by a still higher and rarer faculty — by his power of 
digesting and arranging in its proper place all the information he 
received, and of casting aside and rejecting, as it were instinc- 
tively, whatever was worthless or immaterial. Every conception 



29S FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

that was suggested to his mind seemed instantly to take its pisce 
among its other rich furniture, and to be condensed into the small- 
est and most convenient form. He never appeared, therefore, to 
be at all encumbered or perplexed with the verbiage of the dull 
books he perused, or the idle talk to which he listened ; but to 
have at once extracted, by a kind of intellectual alchemy, all that 
was worthy of attention, and to have reduced it for his own use 
to its true value and to its simplest form. And thus it often hap- 
pened, that a great deal more was learned from his brief and 
vigorous account of the theories and arguments of tedious writers, 
than an ordinary student could ever have derived from the most 
faithful study of the originals, and that errors and absurdities be- 
came manifest from the mere clearness and plainness of his state- 
ment of them, which might have deluded and perplexed most of 
his hearers without that invaluable assistance.'" 



JAMES BRINDLEY, 

James Brindley, the celebrated engineer, was entirely self- 
taught in even the rudiments of mechanical science, — although, 
unfortunately, we are not in possession of any very minute details 
of the manner in which his powerful genius first found its way to 
the knowledge of those laws of nature of which it afterwards 
made so many admirable applications. He was born at Tunsted, 
in the parish of Wormhill, Derbyshire, in the year 1716 ; and 
all we know of the first seventeen years of his life is, that his 
father, having reduced himself to extreme poverty by his dissi- 
pated habits, he was allowed to grow up almost totally uneducated, 
and, from the time he was able to do any thing, was employed in 
the ordinary descriptions of country labor. To the end of his 
life this great genius was barely able to read on any very press- 
ing occasion ; for, generally speaking, he would no more have 
thought of looking into a book for any information he wanted, 
than of seeking for it in the heart of a millstone : and his know- 
ledge of the art of writing hardly extended farther than the ac- 
complishment of signing his name. It is probable, that as he grew 
towards manhood, he began to feel himself created for higher 
things than driving a cart or following a plough ; and we may 
even venture to conjecture, that the particular bias of his genius 
towards mechanical invention had already disclosed itself, when, 




JAMES BRINDLEY. 



d 



JAMES BRINDLEY. 301 

at the age of seventeen, he bound himself apprentice to a person 
of the name of Bennet, a millwright, residing at Macclesfield, 
which was but a few miles from his native place. At all events, 
it is certain that he almost immediately displayed a wonderful 
natural aptitude for the profession he had chosen. " In the early 
part of his apprenticeship," says the writer of his life in the 
' Biographia Britannica,' who was supplied with the materials of 
his article by Mr. Henshall, Brindley's brother-in-law, " he was 
frequently left by himself for whole weeks together, to execute 
works concerning which his master had given him no previous in- 
structions. These works, therefore, he finished in his own way ; 
and Mr. Bennet was often astonished at the improvements his 
apprentice from time to time introduced into the millwright busi- 
ness, and earnestly questioned him from whom he had gained his 
knowledge. He had not been long at the trade, before the mill- 
ers, wherever he had been employed, always chose him again in 
preference to the master, or any other workman ; and before the 
expiration of his servitude, at which time Mr. Bennet, who was 
advanced in years, grew unable to work, Mr. Brindley, by his 
ingenuity and application, kept up the business with credit, and 
even supported the old man and his family in a comfortable 
manner." 

His master, indeed, from all that we hear of him, does not ap- 
pear to have been very capable of teaching him much of any 
thing ; and Brindley seems to have been left to pick up his know- 
ledge of the business in the best way he could, by his own obser- 
vation and sagacity. Bennet having been employed on one 
occasion, we are told, to build the machinery of a paper-mill, 
which he had never seen in his life, took a journey to a distant 
part of the country expressly for the purpose of inspecting one 
which might serve him for a model. However, he had made his 
observations, it would seem, to very little purpose ; for, having 
returned home and fallen to work, he could make nothing of the 
business at all, and was only bewildering himself, when a stranger, 
who understood something of such matters, happening one day to 
see what he was about, felt no scruple in remarking in the neigh- 
borhood that the man was only throwing away his employer's 
money. The reports which in consequence got abroad soon 
reached the ears of Brindley, who had been employed on the 
machinery under the directions of his master. Having probably 
of himself begun ere this to suspect that all was not right, his 
suspicions were only confirmed by what he heard ; but, aware 
how unlikely it was that his master would be able to explain 
matters, or even to assist him in getting out of his difficulties, he 



302 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

did not apply to him. On the contrary, he said nothing to any 
one ; but, waiting till the work of the week was over, set out 
by himself one Saturday evening to see the mill which his master 
had already visited. He accomplished his object, and was back 
to his work by Monday morning, having travelled the whole 
journey of fifty miles on foot. Perfectly master now of the con- 
struction of the mill, he found no difficulty in going on vi^ith his 
undertaking ; and completed the machine, indeed, not only so as 
perfectly to satisfy the proprietor, but with several improvements 
on his model, of his own contrivance. 

After remaining some yeai's with Bennet, he set up in business 
for himself With the reputation he had already acquired, his 
entire devotion to his profession, and the wonderful talent for me- 
chanical invention, of which almost every piece of machinery he 
constructed gave evidence, he could not fail to succeed. But for 
some time, of course, he was known only in the neighborhood of 
the place where he lived. His connections, however, gradually 
became more and more extensive ; and at length he began to 
undertake engineering in all its branches. He distinguished him- 
self greatly in 1752, by the erection of a water-engine for drain- 
ing a coal-mine at Clifton in Lancashire. The great difficulty in 
this case was to obtain a supply of water for working the engine ; 
this he brought through a tunnel of six hundred yards in length, 
cut in the solid rock. It would appear, however, that his genius 
was not yet quite appreciated as it deserved to be, even by those 
who employed him. He was in some sort an intruder into his 
present profession, for which he had not been regularly educated ; 
and it was natural enough that, before his great powers had had 
an opportunity of showing themselves, and commanding the uni- 
versal admiration of those best qualified to judge of them, he 
should have been conceived by many to be rather a merely clever 
workman in a few particular departments, than one who could be 
safely intrusted with the entire management and superintendence 
of a complicated design. In 1755 it was determined to ei'ect a 
new silk-mill at Congleton, in Cheshire ; and another person hav- 
ing been appointed to preside over the execution of the work, and 
to arrange the more intricate combinations, Brindlcy was engaged 
to fabricate the larger wheels and other coarser parts of the ap- 
paratus. It soon became manifest, however, in this instance, that 
the superintendent was unfit for his office ; and the proprietors 
were obliged to apply to Brindley to remedy several blunders into 
which he had fallen, and give his advice as to how the work should 
be proceeded in. Still they did not deem it proper to dismiss their 
incapable projector ; but, the pressing difficulty overcome, would 



JAMES BRINDLEY. 308 

have had him by whose ingenuity they had been enabled to get 
over it, to return to his subordinate place, and work under the 
directions of the same superior. This Brindley positively refused 
to do. He told them he was ready, if they would merely let him 
know what they wished the machine to perform, to apply his best 
endeavors to make it answer that purpose, and that he had no 
doubt he should succeed ; but he would not submit to be super- 
intended by a person whom he had discovered to be quite ignorant 
of the business he professed. This at once brought about a proper 
ari-angement of matters. Brindley's services could not be dis- 
pensed with ; those of the pretender, who had been set over him, 
might be so, without much disadvantage. The entire manage- 
ment of the work, therefore, was forthwith confined to the former, 
who completed it, with his usual ability, in a superior manner. 
He not only made important improvements, indeed, in many parts 
of the machine itself, but even in the mode of preparing the 
separate pieces of which it was to be composed. His ever-active 
genius was constantly displaying itself by the invention of the^ 
most beautiful and economical simplifications. One of these was 
a method which he contrived for cutting all his tooth and pinion 
wheels by machinery, instead of having them done by the hand, 
as they always till then had been. This invention enabled him to 
finish as much of that sort of work in one day as had formerly 
been accomplished in fourteen. 

But the character of this man's mind was comp];ehensiveness 
and grandeur of conception ; and he had not yet found any ade- 
quate field for the display of his vast ideas and almost inexhausti- 
ble powers of execution. Happily, however, this was at last 
afforded him, by the commencement of a series of undertakings 
in his native country, which deservedly rank among the achieve- 
ments of modern enterprise and mechanical skill ; and which were 
destined, within no long period, to change the whole aspect of the 
internal commerce of the island. 

Artificial water-roads, or canals, were well known to the an- 
cients. Without transcribing all the learning that has been col- 
lected upon the subject, and may be found in any of the common 
treatises, we may merely state that the Egyptians had early effect- 
ed a junction, by this means, between the Red Sea and the Medi- 
terranean ; that both the Greeks and the Romans attempted to cut 
a canal across the Isthmus of Corinth ; and that the latter people 
actually cut one in Britain from the neighborhood of Peterborough 
to that of Lincoln, some traces of which are still discernible. 
Canal navigation is also of considerable antiquity in China. The 
greatest work of this description in the world is the Imperial Canal 



304 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

of that country, which is two hundred feet broad, and, commen- 
cing at Pekin, extends southward, to the distance of about nine 
hundred miles. It is supposed to have been constructed about 
eight centuries ago ; but there are a great many smaller works of 
the same kind in the country, many of which are undoubtedly much 
older. The Chinese are unacquainted, as were also the ancients, 
with the contrivance called a lock, by means of which different 
levels are connected in modern canals, and which, as probably 
all our readers know, is merely a small intermediate space, in 
which the water can be kept at the same elevation as either part 
of the channel, into which the boat is admitted by the opening of 
one floodgate, and from which it is let out by the opening of an- 
other, after the former has been shut ; — ^the purpose being thus 
attained, of floating it onwards, without any greater waste of water 
than the quantity required to alter the level of the enclosed space. 
When locks are not employed, the canal must be either of uniform 
level throughout, or it must consist of a succession of completely 
separated portions of water-way, from one to the other of which 
the boat is carried on an inclined plane, or by some other mechan- 
ical contrivance. 

Canals have also been long in use in several of the countries of 
modern Europe, particularly in the Netherlands and in France. 
In the former, indeed, they constitute the principal means of com- 
munication between one place and another, whether for commer- 
cial or other purposes. In France, the canals of Burgundy, of 
Briare, of Orleans, and of Languedoc, all contribute important 
facihties to the commerce of the country. The last mentioned, 
which unites the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, is sixty feet broad 
and one hundred and fifty miles in length. It was finished in 1681 ; 
having employed twelve thousand men for fifteen years, and cost 
twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. 

It is remarkable that, with these examples before her, England 
was so late in availing herself of the advantages of canal naviga- 
tion. The subject, however, had not been altogether unthought of. 
As early as the reign of Charles the Second, a scheme was in agi- 
tation for cutting a canal (which has since been made) between 
the Forth and the Clyde, in the northern part of the kingdom ; but 
the idea was abandoned, from the diflSculty of procuring the requi. 
site funds. A very general impression, too, seems to have been 
felt, in the earlier part of the last century, as to the desirableness 
of eflecting a canal navigation between the central English coun- 
ties and either the metropolis or the eastern coast. 

The first modern canal actually executed in England, was not 
begun till the year 1755. It was the result of a sudden thought 



JAMES BRINDLEY. 305 

on the pari of its undertakers, nothing of the Idnd having been 
contemplated by them when they commenced the operations which 
led to it. They liad obtained an act of parliament for rendering 
navigable the Sankey brook, in Lancashire, which flows into the 
river Mersey, from the neighborhood of the now flourishing town 
of St. Helen''s, through a district abounding in valuable beds of 
coal. Upon surveying the ground, however, with more care, it 
was considered better to leave the natural course of the stream 
altogether, and to carry the intended navigation along a new line ; 
in other words, to cut a canal. The work was accordingly com- 
menced ; and the powers of the projectors having been enlarged 
by a second act of parliament, the canal was eventually extended 
to the length of about twelve miles. It has turned out both a 
highly successful speculation for the proprietors, and a valuble pub- 
lic accommodation. 

It is probable that the Sankey Canal, although it did not give 
birth to the first idea of the great work we are now about to de- 
scribe, had at least the honor of prompting the first decided step 
towards its execution. Francis, duke of Bridgewater, who, while 
yet much under age, had succeeded, in the year 1748, by the death 
of his elder brothers, to the family estates, and the title, which had 
been first borne by his father, had a property at Worsley, about 
seven miles west from Manchester, extremely rich in coal-mines, 
which, however, had hitherto been unproductive, owing to the want 
of any sufficiently economical means of transport. The object of 
supplying this defect had for some time strongly engaged the atten. 
tion of the young duke, as it had, indeed, done that of his father ; 
who, in the year 1732, had obtained an act of parliament enabling 
him to cut a canal to Manchester, but had been deterred from com- 
mencing the work, both by the immense pecviniary outlay which 
it would have demanded, and the formidable natural difficulties 
against which, at that time, there was probably no engineer in the 
country able to contend. When the idea, however, was now re- 
vived, the extraordinary mechanical genius of Brindley had already 
acquired for him an extensive reputation, and he was applied to by 
the duke, to survey the ground through which the proposed canal 
would have to be carried, and to make his report upon the practi- 
cability of the scheme. New as he was to this species of engi- 
neering, Brindley, confident in his own powers, at once undertook 
to make the desired examination, and, having finished it, expressed 
his conviction that the ground presented no difficulties which might 
not be surmounted. On receiving this assurance, the duke at once 
determined upon commencing the undertaking ; and an act of par- 
liament having been obtedned in 1758, the powers of which were 



306 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

considerably extended by succeeding acts, the formation of the 
canal was begun that year. 

From the first, the duke resolved that, without regard to ex- 
pense, every part of the work should be executed in the most per- 
feet manner. One of the chief difficulties to be surmounted was 
that of procuring a sufficient supply of water ; and, therefore, that 
there might be as little of it as possible wasted, it was determined 
that the canal should be of uniform level throughout, and of course 
without locks. It had consequently to be carried in various parts 
of its course both under hills and over wide and deep valleys. The 
point, indeed, from which it took its commencement was the heart 
of the coal mountain at Worsley. Here a large basin was fo?:m. 
ed, in the first place, from which a tunnel of three quarters of a 
mile in length had to be cut through the hill. We may just men. 
tion, in passing, that the subterraneous course of the water beyond 
this basin has since been extended in various directions for about 
thirty miles. After emerging from under ground, the line in the 
canal was carried forward, as we have stated, by the intrepid 
engineer, on the same undeviating level ; every obstacle that 
presented itself being triumphed over by his admirable ingenuity, 
which the difficulties seemed only to render more fertile in happy 
inventions. Nor did his comprehensive mind ever neglect even 
the most subordinate departments of the enterprise. The opera- 
tions of the workmen were every where facilitated by new machines 
of his contrivance ; and whatever could contribute to the economy 
with which the work was carried on, was attended to only less 
anxiously than what was deemed essential to its completeness. 
Thus, for example, the materials excavated from one place were 
employed to form the necessary embankments at another, to which 
they were conveyed in boats, having bottoms which opened, and 
at once deposited the load in the place where it was wanted. No 
part of his task, indeed, seemed to meet this great engineer unpre- 
pared. He made no blunders, and never had either to undo any thing, 
or to wish it undone ; on the contrary, when any new difficulty oc- 
curred, it appeared almost as if he had been all along providing for 
it — as if his other operations had been directed from the first by his 
anticipation of the one now about to be undertaken. 

In order to bring the canal to Manchester it was necessary to 
carry it across the Irwell. That river is, and was then, navigable 
for a considerable way above the place at which the canal comes 
up to it ; and this circumstance interposed an additional difficulty, 
as, of course, in establishing the one navigation, it was indispensa- 
ble that the other should not be destroyed or interfered with. But 
nothing could dismay the daring genius of Brindley. Thinking it, 




AQUEDUCT OVKR THE IRWELL. 



JAMES BRINDLEY. 30?} 

however, due to his noble employer to give him the most satisfying 
evidence in his power of the practicability of his design, he requested 
that another engineer might be called in to give his opinion before 
its execution should be determined on. This person Brindley car- 
ried to the spot where he proposed to rear his aqueduct, and en- 
deavored to explain to him how he meant to carry on the work. 
But the man only shook his head, and remarked, that " he had often 
heard of castles in the air, hut never hefore was shovm where any 
of them were to he erected^ The duke, nevertheless, retained his 
confidence in his own engineer, and it was resolved that the work 
should proceed. The erection of the aqueduct, accordingly, was 
begun in September, 1760, and on the 17th of July following the 
first boat passed over it, the whole structure forming a bridge of 
above two hundred yards in length, supported upon three arches, 
of which the centre one rose nearly forty feet above the surface of 
the river ; on which might be frequently beheld a vessel passing 
along, while another, with all its masts and sails standing, was 
holding its undisturbed way directly under its keel. 

In 1762 an act of parliament was, after much opposition, ob- 
tained by the diike, for cariying a branch of his canal to commu- 
nicate with Liverpool, and so uniting that town, by this method of 
communication, to Manchester. This portion of the canal, which 
is more than twenty-nine miles in length, is, like the former, with- 
out locks, and is carried by an aqueduct over the Mersey, the arch 
of which, however, is less lofty than that of the one over the Irwell, 
as the river is not navigable at the place where it crosses. It 
passes also over several valleys of considerable width and depth. 
Before this, the usual price of the carriage of goods between 
Liverpool and Manchester had been twelve shillings per ton by 
by water, and forty shillings by land ; they were now conveyed by 
the canal, at a charge of six shillings per ton, and with all the 
I'egularity of land carriage. 

In contemplating this great work, we ought not to overlook the 
admirable manner in which the enterprising nobleman, at whose 
expense it was undertaken, performed his part in cariying it on. 
It was his determination, as we have already stated, from the first, 
to spare no expense on its completion. Accordingly, he devoted 
to it during the tune of its progress nearly the whole of his reve- 
nues, denying himself, all the while, even the ordinaiy accommo- 
dations of his rank, and living on an income of four hundred a year. 
He had even great commercial difficulties to contend with in the 
prosecution of his schemes, being at one time unable to raise 500Z. 
on his bond on the Royal Exchange ; and it was a chief business 
of his agent, Mr. Gilbert, to ride up and down the country to raise 



310 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

money on his grace's promissory notes. It is true that he waa 
afterwards amply repaid for this outlay and temporary sacrifice ; 
but the compensation that eventually accrued to him he never might 
have lived to enjoy ; and at all events he acted as none but extra- 
ordinary men do, in thus voluntarily relinquishing the present foi 
the future, and preferring to any dissipation of his wealth on pass- 
ing and merely personal objects, the creation of this magnificent 
monument of lasting public usefulness. Nor was it only in the 
liberality of his expenditure that the duke approved himself a patron 
worthy of Brindley. He supported his engineer throughout the un- 
dertaking with unflinching spirit, in the face of no little outcry and 
ridicule, to which the imagined extravagance or impracticability 
of many of his plans exposed him — and that even from those who 
were generally accounted the most scientific judges of such matters. 
The success with which these plans were carried into execution, is 
probably, in no slight degree, to be attributed to the perfect confi- 
dence with which their author was thus enabled to proceed. 

While the Bridgewater canal was yet in progress, Mr. Brindley 
was engaged by Lord Gower, and the other principal landed pro- 
prietors of Staffordshire, to survey a line for another canal, which 
it was proposed should pass through that county, and, by uniting 
the Trent and the Mersey, open for it a communication, by water, 
with both the east and west coast. Having reported favorably of 
the practicability of this design, and an act of parliament having 
been obtained in 1765 for carrying it into effect, he was appointed 
to conduct the work. The scheme was one whiclf had been often 
thought of; but the supposed impossibility of carrying the canal 
across the tract of elevated country which stretches along the cen- 
tral region of England had hitherto prevented any attempt to exe- 
cute it. This was, however, precisely such an obstacle as Brindley 
delighted to cope with ; and he at once overcame it, by carrying a 
tunnel through Harecastle Hill, of two thousand eight hundred and 
eighty yards in length, at a depth, in some places, of more than 
two hundred feet below the surface of the earth. This was only 
one of five tunnels excavated in different parts of the canal, which 
extends to the length of ninety- three miles, having seventy-six locks, 
and passing in its course over many aqueducts. Brindley, how- 
ever, did not live to execute the whole of this great work, which 
was finished by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, in 1777, about 
eleven years afler its commencement. 

During the time that these operations, so new in England, 
were in progress, the curious crowded to witness them from all 
quarters, and the grandeur of many of Brind ley's plans seems to 
have made a deep impression upon even his unscientific visiters. 



JAMES BRIJSTDLEY. 311 

A letter which appeared in the newspapers, while he was engaged 
with the Trent and Mersey Canal, gives us a lively picture of the 
astonishment with which the multitude viewed what he was about. 
The writer, it will be observed, alludes particularly to the Hare- 
castle tunnel, the chief difficulty in excavating which arose from 
the nature of the soil it had to be cut through. " Gentlemen come 
to view our eighth wonder of the world, the subterranean naviga- 
tion which is cutting by the great Mr. Brindley, who handles rocks 
as easily as you would plum-pies, and makes the four elements 
subservient to his will. He is as plain a looking man as one of 
the boors of the Peak, or one of his own carters ; but when he 
speaks all ears listen, and every mind is filled with wonder at the 
things he pronounces to be practicable. He has cut a mile through 
bogs which he binds up, embanking them with stones, which he 
gets out of other parts of the navigation, besides about a quarter 
of a mile into the hill Yelden, on th« side of which he has a pump, 
which is worked by water, and a stove, the fire of which sucks 
through a pipe the damps that would annoy the men who are cut- 
ting towards the centre of the hill. The clay he cuts out serves 
for brick to arch the subterraneous part, which we heartily wish 
to see finished to Wilden Ferry, when we shall be able to send 
coals and pots to London, and to different parts of the globe." 

It would occupy too much of our space to detail, however rapidly, 
the history of the other undertakings of this description to which 
the remainder of Mr. Brindley's life was devoted. The success 
with which the Duke of Bridgewater's enterprising plans for the 
improvement of his property were rewarded, speedily prompted 
numerous other speculations of a similar description ; and many 
canals were formed in different parts of the kingdom, in the exe- 
cution or planning of almost all of which Brindley's services were 
employed. He himself had become quite an enthusiast in his new 
profession, as a little anecdote that has been often told of him 
may serve to show. Having been called on one occasion to give 
his evidence touching some professional point before a committee 
of the house of commons, he expressed himself, in the course of 
his examination, with so much contempt of rivers as means of in- 
ternal navigation, that an honorable member was tempted to ask 
him for what purpose he conceived rivers to have been created ? 
when Brindley, after hesitating a moment, replied, " To feed 
canals.'''' His success as a builder of aqueducts would appear to 
have inspired him with almost as fervid a zeal in favor of bridges 
as of canals, if it be true, as has been asserted, that one of his 
favorite schemes contemplated the joining of Great Britain to Ire- 
land by a bridge of boats extending from Port Patrick to Donag- 

14 



812 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

hadee. This report, however, is alleged to be without foundation 
by the late Earl of Bridgewater, in a curious work which he pub- 
lished some years ago at Paris, relative to his predecessor's cele- 
brated canal. 

Brindley's multiplied labors, and intense application, rapidly 
wasted his strength, and shortened his life. He died at Turnhurst, 
in Staffordshire, on the 27th of September, 1772, in the fifty-sixth 
year of his age, having suffered for some years under a hectic 
fever, which he had never been able to get rid of In his case, 
as in that of other active spirits, the soul seems to have 

" O'er-inform'd its tenement of clay ;" 

although the actual bodily fatigue to which his many engagements 
subjected him, must doubtless have contributed to wear him out. 
No man ever lived more for his pursuit, or less for himself, 
than Brindley. He had no sources of enjoyment, or even of 
thought, except in his profession. It is related, that having once, 
when in London, been prevailed upon to go to the theatre, the 
unusual excitement so confused and agitated him, as actually to 
unfit him for business for several days, on which account he never 
could be induced to repeat his visit. His total want of education, 
and ignorance of literature, left his genius without any other field 
in which to exercise itself and spend its strength than that which 
the pursuit of his profession aflforded it : its power, even here, 
would not probably have been impaired, if it could have better 
sought relaxation in variety ; on the contrary, its spring would 
most hkely have been all the stronger for being occasionally un- 
bent. We have already mentioned that he was all but entirely 
ignorant of reading and writing. He knew something of figures, 
but did not avail himself much of their assistance in performing 
the calculations which were frequently necessary in the prosecu- 
tion of his mechanical designs. On these occasions his habit was 
to work the question by a method of his own, chiefly in his head, 
only setting down the results at particular stages of the operation ; 
yet his conclusions were generally correct. His vigor of concep- 
tion, in regard to machinery, was so great, that howeverxompli- 
cated might be the machine he had to execute, he never, except 
sometimes to satisfy his employers, made any drawing or model 
of it ; but having once fixed its different parts in his mind, would 
construct it without any difficulty, merely from the idea of which 
he had thus possessed himself When much perplexed with any 
problem he had to solve, his practice was to take to bed, in order 
to study it ; and he would sometimes remain, we are told, for two 
or three days thus fixed to his pillow in meditation, 



JESSE RAMSDEN. 313 

Had it not been for the example set by his adventurous genius, 
the progress of artificial navigation in Great Britain would proba- 
bly have been timid and slow, compared to what it has been. For 
a long time, in all likehhood, the only canals would have been a 
few small ones, cut in the more level parts of the country, the 
benefit of each of which would have been extremely insignificant, 
and confined to a very narrow neighborhood. He did, in the very 
infancy of the art, what has not yet been outdone ; struggling, in- 
deed, with such difficulties, and triumphing over them, as could 
be scarcely exceeded by any his successors might have to en- 
counter. By the boldness and success with which, in particular, 
he carried the grand Trunk Navigation across the elevated ground 
of the midland counties, he demonstrated that there was hardly 
any part of the island where a canal might not be formed ; and, 
accordingly, this very central ridge, which used to be deemed so 
insurmountable an obstacle to the junction of the opposite coasts, 
is now intersected by more than twenty canals besides the one 
which he first drove through the barrier. It is in the conception 
and accomplishment of such grand and fortunate deviations from 
ordinary practice that we discern the power, and confess the value, 
oforiginaJ genius. 

The case of Brindley affords us a wonderful example of what 
the force of natural talent will sometimes do in attaining an ac- 
quaintance with particular departments of science, in the face of 
almost every conceivable disadvantage — where not only all edu- 
cation is wanting, but even all access to books. 



JESSE RAMSDEN. 

Jesse Ramsden was born in 1735, at Salterhebble, near Hali- 
fax, where his father kept an inn. The education he received in 
his boyhood embraced both a little Latin and the elements of 
geometry and algebra. But when he was of the usual age for 
being put to a business, his father took him from school, and bound 
him apprentice to a clothier in Halifax ; and in this line he con- 
tinued till he reached his twentieth year, when he came up to 
London, and obtained employment as a clerk in a wholesale ware- 
house. He held this situation for about two years and a half ; but 
in the mean time he had industriously availed himself of what 
leisure he could command to renew and extend his acquaintance 



314 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

with science ; and so eaamoured did he gradually become of ther -> 
pursuits, that he at last resolved to make an effort to establisn 
himself in some line more closely comiected with his favorite 
studies than that which he had heretofore followed. With this 
view, notwithstanding that he was now so far beyond the age at 
which the learning of a business is usually begun, he bound him- 
self apprentice for four years to Mr. Burton, of Denmark-court, 
a mathematical instrument maker. On the expiration of this 
term, he and a fellow-workman of the name of Cole entered into 
business together, Ramsden serving the other as journeyman at a 
salary of twelve shillings per week. This connection, however, 
did not last long ; and on its termination Ramsden opened a shop 
of his own. His chief employment for some time consisted in 
repairing optical and other mathematical instruments which had 
got out of order ; and in this the industry and abiUty he displayed 
soon brought him into notice, and procured him a rapidly increas- 
ing business. But he did not rest satisfied with merely performing 
in a superior manner such work as he undertook of this descrip- 
tion ; the different instruments which passed through his hands 
forcibly attracted his attention to the imperfections by which each 
happened to be characterized, and called his powers of contrivance 
info exercise in devising how they might be improved. In order 
to accomplish himself the more completely for this task, he labored 
assiduously till he acquired, entirely by his own application,' the 
art of gi'inding glass, and of handling the file, the lathe, and the 
other instruments used by opticians. Thus furnished with the 
practical skill and dexterity requisite to enable him to apply his 
ingenuity and mathematical knowledge, he proceeded to enter 
upon a regular and comprehensive examination of all the different 
optical instruments in use, with a view to the remedying of their 
several defects. 

This resolution, and the perseverance with which it was followed 
up, eventually made Ramsden one of the greatest optical mechani- 
cians - that the world has ever produced. The list of the in- 
struments which are indebted -to him for the most ingenious and 
valuable improvements, embraces nearly all those of greatest im- 
portance and most common use in astronomy and the connected 
sciences. Hadley's quadrant, the sextant, the theodolite, the baro- 
meter, the transit instrument, and many others too numerous to 
specify, all came out of his hands, it might almost be said, with 
new powers, and certainly, at all events, with much more in every 
case than they before possessed, both of manageableness and of 
accuracy. In this last respect, especially, the instruments con 
structed by him far surpassed any that had before been produced ; 



JESSE RAMSDEN. 315 

and they were indebted for much of their superiority to a new 
di\ading or graduating engine which he had contrived, the prin- 
ciple of which was extremely ingenious. It consisted essentially 
of a marker moved forward by the turning of a very fine-threaded 
screw. It is easy to make a screw with a hundred turns of the 
thread in an inch; and by attaching to it a handle or index of 
sufficient length, so that the extrernity may be over a properly 
divided circle of considerable magnitude, the movement of such a 
screw may be regulated with perfect precision to the thousandth 
part of one of its entire revolutions. Now, as by such a revolu- 
tion it would only advance the marker the hundredth part of an 
inch, it is evident that, by being turned only the thousandth part 
of an entire revolution every time the marker is allowed to descend 
and make an impression upon the plate of m.etal or other surface 
to be divided, a hundred thousand equidistant lines may actually 
be drawn upon every inch of that surface. For this most useful 
contrivance the Board of Longitude awarded him a premium of 
£615 ; and in return he engaged to graduate whatever sextants 
were put into his hands for that purpose, at the rate of three shil- 
lings a-piece. His engine, indeed, enabled him to perform the 
operation in about twenty minutes, whereas it had been wont to 
occupy many hours. But the additional accuracy which was given 
to the instrument to which it was appUed by the new method, was 
of still greater importance than its comparative expedition and 
cheapness. Hadley''s quadrant, for instance, used to be so coarsely 
divided, and in other respects so defectively made, before it re. 
ceived Ramsden's improvements, that, in endeavoring to ascertain 
the longitude by it, the observation might in some cases lead to an 
error of fifty leagues ; but Ramsden constructed it in so superior 
a manner, that even his commonest instruments did not admit of 
an error being fallen into of more than the tenth part of that 
amount, and with those of a more expensive description accuracy 
was ensured in all cases to within a single league. 

Soon after he commenced business, Ramsden married Miss 
DoUond, daughter of the inventor of the achromatic telescope, part 
of the patent for which came in this way into his possession. In 
1786 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, having been 
proposed by his friends without his knowledge, after his diffidence 
in his claims to such a distinction had made him long withhold his 
consent to their taking that step. In 1794 he was chosen a mem- 
ber of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Petersburg ; and in 
1795 the Royal Society awarded him the gold medal annually be. 
stowed by them for eminence in science. 

The Reverend Lewis Dutens, the author of the " Researches on 



316 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

the Origin of Discoveries," who was intimately acquainted with 
Ramsden, has given us an account of his friend, which contains 
some interesting particulars of his character and habits. After 
noticing his great activity, the uncommon force of his reasoning 
powers, and the accurate and retentive memory with which he 
was endowed, the writer proceeds to remark, that perhaps, after 
all, the most distinguishing quality of his mind was a certain ele- 
gance, and taste for precision and high finish, which appeared not 
more in the instruments he manufactured than in every thing he 
did. " This feeling for perfection," Mr. Dutens goes on to say, 
'' led him, in the most minute and insignificant parts of his instru- 
ments, to a polish and grace, which sometimes tempted those to 
smile who did not perceive that the same principle which enabled 
him to carry the essential parts of his instruments to a degree of 
perfection unknown, and considered as impossible before his time, 
induced him to be dissatisfied if a blemish of any sort, even the 
most trifling, appeared to his exquisite eye. To these uncom- 
monly strong natural endowments he added all that the most con- 
stant and intense study could bestow. Temperate to abstemious- 
ness in his diet, satisfied with an extremely small portion of sleep, 
unacquainted with dissipation or amusement, and giving but very 
little time even to the society of his friends, the whole of those 
hours which he could spare from the duties of his profession were 
devoted either to meditation on farther improvements of philo- 
sophical instruments, or to the perusal of books of science, parti- 
cularly those mathematical works of the most sublime writers 
which had any connection with the subjects of his own pursuits. 
Mr. Ramsden's only relaxation from these constant and severe 
studies was the occasional perusal of the best authors both in 
prose and verse ; and when it is recollected that at an advanced 
age he made himself so completely master of the French language 
as to read with peculiar pleasure the works of Boileau and Moliere, 
he will not be accused of trifling even in his lighter hours. Short 
and temperate as were his repasts, a book or a pen were the con- 
stant companions of his meals, and not seldom brought on a for- 
getfulness of hunger ; and when illness broke his sleep, a lamp 
and a book were ever in readiness to beguile the sense of pain, 
and make bodily sickness minister to the progress of his mind. 
Of the extent of his mathematical knowledge he was always from 
innate modesty averse to speak, although I have heard him say 
that he never was at a 'loss when his profession required the ap- 
plication of geometry. His knowledge in the science of optics is 
well known to have been perfect ; and when we add that the works 
of Bouguer and the great Leonard Euler were his favorite study 



JESSE RAMSDEN. 317 

we shall not lightly rate his proficiency in mathematics. Of his 
skill in mechanics it is unnecessary to speak. Nor let it be sup- 
posed that his science in his profession was limited to the higher 
branch of invention and direction of the labors of others. It is 
a well-known fact, that such was Ms own manual dexterity, that 
there was not any one tool, in any of the numerous branches of 
his profession, which he could not use with a degree of perfection 
at least equal to that of the very best workman in that particular 
branch ; and it is no exaggeration to assert that he could with liis 
own hands have began and finished every single part of his most 
complicated mstruments. It may not be foreign to this part of 
his character to obsei've, that his drawings were smgularly neat 
and accurate, and his handwriting so beautiful, that when he chose 
to exert his skill few writing-masters could equal it." 

In order to ensure that perfect accuracy which it was his object 
to give to every instrument he sold, Ramsden had all the parts of 
the work done under his own inspection ; and for this purpose he 
kept men of every necessary branch of trade in his establishment. 
He availed himself also to the utmost of the advantages to be de- 
rived from the division of labor — allotting to every workman his 
particular department, from which he was never called away to 
another. He employed about sixty men in all ; but such was his 
reputation over all Europe, and so numerous were the orders he 
received, that even with this large estabhshment he found it im- 
possible to execute them wdth the requisite expedition. About 
this, indeed, he did not give himself much trouble ; what alone he 
cared for was, that every instrument which bore his name should 
be worthy of his reputation, no matter what time or pains it should 
cost to make it so. No man was ever more nobly indifierent to 
the mere pecuniary gains of his art. If he had been anxious to 
enrich himself, he might have easily accumulated a large fortune ; 
but for that object he would have had to enlarge his already exten- 
sive estabhshment so much farther, that his personal superintend- 
ence of every part of it would have been impossible. So far was 
he from being influenced by any views of this kind, that it is as- 
serted he never executed any one of the many great works for 
which he received commissions from pubhc bodies, both in his 
own and other countries, without being a loser by it as a trades- 
man. When he occasionally sent for a workman to give him 
necessary directions concerning what he wished to have done, he 
first showed the recent finished plan, then explained the difierent 
parts of it, and generally concluded by saying, with the greatest 
good-humour, "Now see, man, let us try to find fault with it;'''' and 
thus, by putting two heads together to scrutinize his own perform- 



318 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

ance, some alteration was probably made for the better. But, 
whatever expense an instrument had cost in forming, if it did not 
fully answer the intended design, he would immediately say, after 
a little examination of the work, " Bohs, man ! this wonH do ; we 
must have at it again ;'''' and when it did not answer his expecta- 
tions, he never hesitated to take it to pieces, or to destroy it, what- 
ever had been the cost bestowed upon its construction. Admirable 
as all his instruments were, too, for their accuracy, their high 
finish, their dm-ability, and all the other qualities that make up the 
excellence of such productions, he generally put a less price upon 
them — in some cases a much less price — than was charged for 
inferior works of the same kind by other artists. 

It was his custom to retire in the evening to what he considered 
the most comfortable corner in the house, viz., the kitchen fire- 
side, in order to draw some plan for the forming of some new in- 
strument, or perfecting one already made. There he sat, with his 
drawing implements on the table before him, a cat sitting on the 
one side, and a certain portion of bread, butter, and a small mug 
of porter, placed on the other side, while four or five apprentices 
commonly made up the circle. He amused himself with either 
whistling the favorite air, or sometimes singing the old ballad, of 

" If she is not so true to me, 
What care I to whom she be : 
What care I, what care I to whom she be !" 

and appeared in this domestic group contented and happy. 

Mr. Ramsden died on the 5th of November, 1800, at Brighton, 
to which place he had gone a short time before with the view of 
recovering his health, which, never vigorous, had latterly been 
greatly impaired by his unremitting exertions. He. died possessed 
of only a small fortune ; and, in the spirit in which he had lived, 
he left the greater part of it to be divided among his workmen, in 
proportion to their merits and their length of service. 



EARL OF STANHOPE. 

This eccentric and ingenious nobleman was born at Chevening, 
Kent, in August, 1753. In his 9th year he was sent to Eton, and 
at this early age began to give strong proofs of his mechanical and 
mathematical taste. In his ninteenth year he was removed to 
Geneva, and placed under the tuition of Le Sage; and a few 




STANHOPE. 



14* 



STANHOPE. 321 

months afterwards, he gained a prize, offered by a national aca- 
demy for the best paper written in French, on the construction of 
the pendulum. 

The earl was the author of a great number of inventions and 
improvements in the arts and philosophy. Among those which 
attracted the most attention were his electrical experiments ; his 
scheme for securing buildings from fire ; a machine for solving 
problems in arithmetic ; a mode of roofing houses ; a kiln for 
burning lime, — a steamboat, — and a double inclined plane for re- 
medying the inconvenience attending canal locks. This was sug- 
gested to the earl while he was forming a canal in Devonshire, 
the line of which he surveyed himself; and during this employment, 
he for days carried the theodoHte on his own shoulders. Experi- 
ments on stereotype printing, — an esteemed printing press which 
bears his name, — a plan for preventing forgeries in coin and bank 
notes, &c. &c. In putting his ideas into practice he was assisted 
by Mr. Varley, one of the most expert practical mechanics of 
the day. 

But numerous and important as his labors were to the arts, they 
were, even in a public view, exceeded in importance by the impulse 
which his patronage gave to mechanical artists. He appeared to 
be deMghted in bringing them and their productions before the 
public, and in this way he spent a large portion of his ample for- 
tune, and almost the whole of his thoughts and time. 

Whatever view different men might take of the soundness or 
tendency of his political principles, aU were convinced that they 
sprang from the honest conviction of his own mind, uninfluenced 
by the most remotely interested motive, for he uniformly declined 
all offices and public honors. If his projects, both political and 
mechanical, were occasionally considered impracticable, they were 
neither sordid nor selfish. 

His speeches in the house of lords, and in public, on whatever 
topic, were ingenuous, perspicuous, and somewhat forcible. But it 
was often as difficult to answer as to concur with them ; — for he 
seldom adapted his opinions to the state of public affairs, but rea- 
soned from some abstract standard of moral or political right, that 
was seldom in accordance with principles of party or state expe- 
diency. He was sometimes eloquent, and at others, very eccentric 
in his illustrations. There was often a certain quaintness of man- 
ner about them that made them quite irresistible, even to produ- 
cing laughter, from the guarded and studied gravity of the incumbent 
on the woolsack. 

His activity and perseverance were amazing, for notwithstanding 
the multiplicity of his projects and experiments, he was assuredly 



322 FOREIGN MECHANICS, 

profoundly learned in every thing that regarded the constitution 
and ecclesiastical polity of his country, and when on these subjects, 
it is said he even taught " the Judges law, and the Bishops reli- 
gion!'''' — When questions arose which , required a practical know- 
ledge of the exact sciences, or their application to the, arts, if he 
were not the only man, he was-, at least, the ablest in the house to 
expound, discuss, and decide them : and on such occasions he ever 
acted with great judgment. 

Earl Stanhope married Hester Pitt, a daughter of the great 
Eai'l of Chatham, whose political principles he venerated with a 
feeling httle removed from idolatry ; and in the early part of his 
public career, acted cordially with his brother-in-law Mr. Pitt. 
But the circumstances which induced that consummate statesman 
to alter his opinions, had not the same effect on the earl, and their 
political connection was dissolved. On this separation taking place, 
a domestic difficulty sprung up between Stanhope, and his wife and 
wife's connections. This dissension arose from the fact, that Stan- 
hope desired that his children should devote themselves to acquire 
some useful calling as he had done, by which, when the day of pub- 
lic calamity came, which he imagined he foresaw the rapid ap- 
proach of, — ^they might secure independence by their own personal 
ingenuity and labor. But his family preferring the patronage of 
their uncle,, the minister, to the protection of the paternal roof, 
Stanhope declared as they chose to be saddled on the public 
purse, they must "take the consequences.'''' They were not there- 
fore mentioned in his will, although they were entitled to certain 
sums by a marriage settlement. 

" Charles Stanhope," said the Earl of Chatham, "as a carpenter, 
a blacksmith, or millwright, could in any country, or any times, 
preserve his independence and bring up his family in honest and 
industrious courses, without soliciting the bounty of friends or the 
charity of strangers." 

Stanhope was odd in his dress and person, and his plain, unaf- 
fected, amiable manners, were considered to be singular for a man 
of his high rank and connections : but they conciliated affection in 
many cases approaching to devotion, and his general integrity 
commanded universal respect. He was a considerate and kind 
landlord, an ardent friend, and his purse and influence were ever 
open to befriend the helpless and the poor ; but he always disliked 
any superfluous expressions of gratitude. 

Among other anecdotes, of his lordship's eccenti-icities, the fol- 
lowing is related. He was very particular in the shape and tex- 
ture of his wigs, which were peculiar, and was a long time in getting 
a barber to make them to his liking, but at last succeeded. It 



HOHLFELD. 323 

happened, however, that at a period when his stock of these " ele- 
gant imitations of nature" was " unusually low," the poor barber 
was taken so exceedingly ill that his life was despaired of. His 
lordship immediately on hearing of the illness of his favorite 
artist, sent a physician to attend him, and the first desire of the 
barber on his recoveiy was, very naturally, to assure the noble 
lord of his gratitude for this unexpected act of benevolence. 
After a few words of condolence, his lordship asked him if his 
funds were not exhausted by his long inability to attend to his 
business, and whether an order in the way of trade would not be . 
serviceable to him. Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he 
ordered a score of wigs. Upon bringing them home, the wig maker 
began to pour forth the grateful feelings of his heart for this new 
kindness, in addition to having saved his life, when his lordship 
interrupted him by putting down the money, and jokingly re- 
marked, " Oh ! — you may now die and be for aught I care, 

for I have got wigs enough to last all my life!'''' 

Lord Stanhope died in December, 1815, deeply lamented by all, 
but more especially by the humbler class of citizens, whose esteem 
and friendship he had won by his interest and exertions in their 
welfare. 



HOHLFELD. 



HoHLFELD, the celebrated German mechanic, was born of poor 
parents at Hennerndorf, in the. mountains of Saxony, in the year 
1711. He learned the trade of lace-making at Dresden, and early 
disovered a turn for mechanics by constructing various kinds of 
clocks. From Dresden he removed to Berlin to follow his occu- 
pation. As he was an excellent workman, and had invented several 
machines for shortening his labor, he found sufficient time to in- 
dulge his incUnation for mechanics; and he made there, at the 
same time he pursued his usual business, air-guns and clocks. In 
the year 1748, he became acquainted with the celebrated Sulzer, 
at whose desire he undertook the construction of a machine for 
noting down any piece of music when played upon a harpsichord. 
A machine of this kind had been before invented by Mr. Von lin- 
ger, but Hohlfeld, from a very imperfect description, completed one 
without any assistance. Of this machine, now in the possession 
of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, Sulzer gave a figure, from 
which it was afterwards constructed in England. This ingenioua 



324 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

piece of mechanism was universally approved, though several 
things may be wanting to render it complete ; but no one was so 
generous as to indemnify the artist for his expenses, or to reward 
him for his labor. 

About the year 1756, the Prussian minister, Count de Powde- 
wils, took him into his service, chiefly for the purpose of construct, 
ing water- works in his magnificent gardens at Gusow. There he 
invented his well-known threshing machine, and another for chop- 
ping straw more expeditiously. He also displayed his talent for 
invention by constructing an apparatus which, when fastened to a 
carriage, indicated the number of revolutions made by the wheels. 
Such machines had been made before, but his far exceeded eveiy 
thing of the like kind. Having lost this machine by a fire, he in- 
vented another still simpler, which was so contrived as to be buck- 
led between the spokes of the wheel. This piece of mechanism 
was in the possession of Sulzer, who used it on his tour, and found 
that it answered the intended purpose. 

In the year 1765, when the Duke of Courland, then hereditary 
prince, resided at Berlin, he paid a visit to Hohlfeld and endeavor, 
ed to prevail on him to go to Courland, by offering him a pension 
of eight hundred rix-doUars ; but this ingenious man was so con- 
tented with his condition, and so attached to his friends, that he 
would not, merely for self-interest, quit Berlin. His refusal, how- 
ever, obtained for him a pension of one hundred and fifty dollars 
from the king. Besides the before mentioned machines, he con- 
structed occasionally several useful models. Among these was a 
loom for weaving figured stuffs, so contrived that the weaver had 
no need of any thing to shoot through the woof; a pedometer for 
putting in the pocket ; a convenient and simple bed for a sick 
person, by which the patient could at any time, with the least ef- 
fort, raise or lower the breast, and, when necessary, convert the 
bed into a stool ; and a carriage, so formed, that if the horses took 
fright and ran away, the person in it could, by a single push, loosen 
the pole and set them at liberty. 

Every machine that this singular man saw, he altered and im- 
proved in the simplest manner. All his own instruments he made 
himself, and repaired them when damaged. But as he was fonder 
of inventing than of following the plans of others, he made them 
in such a way that no one but himself could use them. Several 
of his improvements were, however, imitated by common work- 
men, though in a very clumsy manner. It is worthy of remark, 
that he never bestowed study upon any thing ; but when he had 
once conceived an idea, he immediately executed it. He compre- 
hended in a moment whatever was proposed, and at the same time 




MATTHEW BOULTON. 



MATTHEW BOULTON. 327 

saw how it was to be accomplished. He could, therefore, tell in 
an instant whether a thing was practicable ; if he thought it was 
not, no persuasion or offer of money could induce him to attempt 
it. He never pursued chimeras, like those mechanics who have 
not had the benefit of education or instruction; and though this 
may be ascribed to the intercourse he had with great mathemati- 
TJajQS and philosophers, there is every reason to believe that he 
would have equally guarded himself against them, even had he not 
enjoyed that advantage. 

The same quickness of apprehension which he manifested in 
mechanics, he showed also in other things. His observations on 
most subjects were judicious, and peculiar to himself. With 
regard to his moral character, he was every thing that could 
be desired. Although he still retained something of the man- 
ners of his former condition, his mild and pleasing " deportment 
rendered his company and conversation agreeable. He possessed 
a good heart, and his life was sober and regular. Though he was 
every day welcome to the best tables, he stayed for the most part 
at home through choice ; went to market for his own provisions, 
which he cooked himself, and was as contented over his humble 
meal as Curius was over his turnips. A little before his death he 
had the pleasure of seeing a curious harpsichord he had made, and 
which was purchased by his Prussian majesty, placed in an elegant 
apartment of the new palace at Pottsdam. As he had for some 
time neglected this instrument, the too great attention which he 
bestowed on putting it in order, contributed not a little to bring 
on that disease which at last proved fatal to him. His clock hav- 
ing become deranged during his illness, he could not be prevented, 
notwithstanding the admonition and advice of his friend and phy- 
sician. Dr. Stahls, from repairing it. Close application occasioned 
some obstructions which were not observed till too late ; and an 
inflammation taking place, he died, in 1771, at the house of Count 
de Powdewils, in the sixtieth year of his age. 



MATTHEW BOULTON. 

This individual, well known as the partner of the celebrated 
Watt, was born at Birmingham on the 14th of September, 1728 ; 
and after having received a tolerable education, studied drawing 
and mathematics. He commenced business as a manufacturer of 



328 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

hardware ; and having discovered a new method of inlaying steel, 
he sent a considerable quantity of buckles, watch-chains, &;c., to 
the continent, where they were purchased by the English travellers 
as the offspring of French ingenuity. Fhiding his premises at 
Birmingham not sufficiently capacious for his purposes, he, in 
1762, purchased an extensive tract of heath, about two miles from 
the town, and at great expense laid the foundation of those vast 
and unrivalled works known as the Soho establishment. To this 
spot his liberality soon attracted numbers of ingenious men from 
all parts, and by their aid the most splendid apartments in Europe 
received their ornaments. 

About 1767, finding the force of the water-mill inadequate to 
his purposes, he constructed a steam engine upon the original plan 
of Savery ; and two years afterwards entered into partnership 
with Watt, in conjunction with whom he turned that machine into 
several new and important uses. They soon acquired a mechan- 
ical fame all over Europe by the extent and utility of their under- 
takings ; the most important of which was their improvement in 
coinage, which they effected about 1788. The coins struck at the 
Soho manufactory were remarkable for their beauty and execution, 
and caused the inventors to be employed by the Sierra Leone 
Company in the coinage of their silver, and by the East India 
Company in that of their copper. 

Mr. Boulton also sent two complete mints to St. Petersburg ; 
and having presented the late emperor Paul the First with some 
of the most curious articles of his manufacture, that sovereign 
returned him a polite letter of thanks and approbation, together 
with a princely present of medals and minerals from Siberia, and 
specimens of all the modern money of Russia. Another invention 
which emanated from the Soho establishment was a method of 
copying oil paintings with such fidelity as to deceive the most 
practised connoisseurs. The last discovery for which Mr. Boulton 
obtained a patent, was an important method for raising water and 
other fluids by impulse ; the specification of which is published in 
the ninth volume of the Repertory of the Arts. It had been de- 
monstrated by Daniel Bernouilli, that water flowing through a pipe 
and arriving at a part in which the pipe is suddenly contracted, 
would have its velocity at first very greatly increased; but no 
practical application of the principle appears to have been at- 
tempted until 1792, by an apparatus set up by Mr. Whitehurst at 
Oulton, in Cheshire. To this Mr. Boulton added a number of in- 
genious modifications. 

As an illustration of the nicety and skill displayed in some of 
the articles made by Mr. Boulton, the following anecdote is re- 



MATTHEW BOULTON. 329 

lated : — He visited France on a certain occasion, for the purpose 
of attending a celebrated mechanical fair that was about taking 
place ; at which he begged to be allowed to exhibit a needle of 
his own making, at the same time submitting it to the examiners 
of works intended for this public display, who one and all pro- 
nounced it to be, though well-shaped and finely polished, but a 
' common needle,'''' and not worthy of appearing amongst the splen- ■ 
did and ingenious improvements and inventions that usually graced 
the fair. " Gentlemen," observed Mr. Boulton, " my needle is 
well worthy of appearance amongst your promised novelties ; only 
allow it to be exhibited with them now, and I will afterwards show 
you the reason why." 

An unwUling assent to this request was finally obtained ; but 
when the fair closed, and the prizes were to be awarded, the arbi- 
trators triumphantly asked, " where was Mr. Boulton ''s needle ? 
and what were those striking merits which everybody had failed 
to discover ?" Thereupon Mr. Boulton again presented it to them 
for inspection, with a magnifying glass, begging them to state 
whether they observed roughness or wrinkle upon its surface. 
The umpires returning it, said, " Far from it ; for that its sole 
merit seemed to lie in its exquisite polish." " Behold, then," said 
this ingenious man, " its undiscoverable merit ; and whilst I prove 
to you that I made no vain boast of its claim to your attention, 
you wiU learn, perhaps, not to judge so readily again by mere ex- 
terior." He then unscrewed the needle, when another appeared 
of as exquisite a workmanship ; and, to the astonished eyes of 
the Frenchmen, about half a dozen beautiful needles were thus 
turned out, neatly and curiously packed within each other ! — a 
miracle of art that seems to rival all we ever read of, — a truly 
" multum in parvo !" Mr. Boulton triumphed in his turn, and 
carried off the prize which his delicate workmanship so richly 
deserved. 

Mr. Boulton appeared at St. lames'" on a levee day : " Well, 
Mr. Boulton," said the king, " I am glad to see you ; what new 
project have you got now?" " I am," said Mr. Boulton, " manu- 
facturing a new article that kings are very fond of" " Aye ! aye ! 
Mr. Boulton, what's that ?" " It is power, and please your ma- 
jesty." " Power ! — Mr. Boulton, we like power, that's true ; but 
what do you mean ?" " Why, sir, I mean the power of steam to 
move machines." His majesty appeared pleased, and laughing, 
said, "Very good; go on, go on." 

After a life devoted to the advancement of the useful arts and 
the commercial Interests of his country, the subject of our memoir 
died on the 17th of August, 1809, in the eighty-first year of his 



330 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

age, and was buried at Handsworth, near Soho ; his funeral being 
followed by six hundred workmen, each of whom received a silver 
medal, struck to commemorate the event. 

Mr. Boulton presents us with an example of the vast influence 
and effects that may be produced upon society by the well-directed 
powers of a great mind abundantly stored with resources, but dis- 
daining the selfish and narrow views that might have contracted 
its usefulness, had he neglected to call to his aid the genius of a 
Watt, and others equally eminent in their spheres. His private 
character was very amiable ; and in his manners and conversation 
he is said to have been extremely fascinating. 



THOMAS TELFORD. 

It is to the energies of genius in humble life that science is 
chiefly indebted for its most valuable discoveiies, and extension 
of its empire. The names of Brindley, Watt, and Arkwright 
will never be forgotten ; and with them, and others equally dis- 
tinguished, will henceforth rank Telford, a civil engineer, and 
constructor of public works, unsurpassed in any country. 

Thomas Telford was born in the year 1757, in the parish of 
Westerkirks, in the pastoral vale of Eskdale, a district in the 
county of Dumfries, in Scotland. His parents, although they oc- 
cupied an humble station in the walks of life, were respected and 
beloved by all who knew them. The outset of the life of their 
son Thomas corresponded to their situation in society, and was 
strikingly humble and obscure in comparison with its close. He 
began the world as a working stone-mason in his native parish, 
and for a long time was only remarkable for the neatness with 
which he cut the letters upon those frail sepulchral memorials, 
which " teach the rustic moralist to die." 

His occupation, fortunately, afforded a greater number of leisure 
hours than what are usually allowed by such laborious employ- 
ments, and these young Telford turned to the utmost advantage in 
his power. Having previously acquired the elements of learning, 
he spent all his spare time in poring over such volumes as fell in 
his way, with no better light than was afforded by the cottage fire. 
Under these circumstances, his mind took a direction not uncom- 
mon among rustic youths : he became a noted rhymster in the 
homely style of Ramsay and Ferguson, and while still a very 



THOMAS TELFORD. 331 

young man, contributed verses to Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine, 
under the unpretending signature of " Eskdale Tarn." In one 
of these compositions which was addressed to Burns, he sketched 
his own character, and his own ultimate fate : — 

Nor pass the tentie curious lad, 
Who o'er the ingle hangs his head, 
And begs of neighbors books to read ; 

For hence arise, 
Thy country's sons, who far are spread, 

Baith bold and wise. 

Though Mr. Telford afterwards abandoned the thriftless trade 
of versifying, he is said to have retained through life a strong 
" frater feeling" for the corps, which he showed in a particular 
manner on the death of Burns, in exertions for the benefit of the 
family. 

Having completed his apprenticeship as a stone mason, in his 
native place, he repaired to Edinburgh, where he found employ- 
ment, and continued with unremitting application to study the 
principles of architecture agreeable to the rules of science. Here 
he remained three or four years, when having made a considera- 
ble proficiency, he left the Scottish capital, and went to London, 
under the patronage of Sir William Pulteney, and the family of 
Pasley, who were townsmen of Telford. 

He now found himself in a scene which presented scope for 
his industry and talent. Fortunately, he did not long remain un- 
noticed, or unemployed. His progress was not rapid, but steady, 
and always advancing ; and every opportunity for displaying his 
taste, science, and genius, extended his fame, and paved the way 
to new enterprises and acquisitions. The first public employment 
in which he was engaged, was that of superintending some works 
belonging to government, in Portsmouth Dock Yard. The duties 
of this undertaking were discharged with so much fidelity and 
care, as to give complete satisfaction to the commissioners, and to 
ensure the future exercise of his talents and services. Hence, 
in 1787, he was appointed surveyor of public works in the rich 
and extensive county of Salop, which situation he retained until 
his decease. 

A detail of the steps by which Mr. Telford subsequently placed 
lii'mself at the head of his profession of engineering, would, most 
likely, only tire our readers. It is allowed on all hands, that his 
elevation was owing solely to his consummate ability and perse- 
vering industry, unless we are to allow a share in the process to 
the very strict integrity which marked his career. His works 



332 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

are so numerous all over Great Britain, that there is hardly a 
county in England, Wales, or Scotland, in which they may not 
be pointed out. 

Nor was the British empire alone benefited by Mr. Telford's 
genius. In the year 1808, he was employed by the Swedish 
government to survey the ground, and lay out an inland naviga- 
tion through the central parts of that kingdom. The design of 
this undertaking was to connect the great fresh water lakes, and 
to form a direct communication by water, between the North Sea 
and the Baltic. 

Mr. Telford's fame as an engineer has been principally spread 
in Great Britain by his great work, the Dublin road from London 
to Holyhead, including the Menai and Conway bridges. The 
Menai bridge, one of the greatest wonders of art in the world, 
is unquestionably the most imperishable monument of his capacity 
for extensive undertakings. This bridge is constructed over the 
small strait of the sea, which intervenes between the mainland 
of North Wales, and the island of Anglesea, and carries onward 
the road to Holyhead. Before its erection, the communication 
was carried on by means of ferry boats, and was therefore subject 
to delays and dangers. The bridge is at a point near the town 
of Bangor, from near which its appearance is strikingly grand. 
It is built partly of stone and partly of iron, on the suspension 
principle, and consists of seven stone arches, exceeding in magni- 
tude every work of the kind in the world. They connect the 
land with the two main piers, which rise 53 feet above the level 
of the road, over the top of which the chains are suspended, each 
chain being 1714 feet from the fastenings in the rock. The first 
three-masted vessel passed under the bridge in 1826. Her top. 
masts were nearly as high as a frigate ; but they cleared 12^ feet 
below the centre of the roadway. The suspending power of the 
chains was calculated at 2016 tons ; the total weight of each 
chain, 121 tons. 

This stupendous undertaking occasioned Mr. Telford more in- 
tense thought than any other of his works. He told a friend that 
his state of anxiety for a short time previous to the opening of the 
bridge was so extreme, that he had but little sound sleep, and that 
a much longer continuance of that condition of mind must have 
undermined his health. Not that he had any reason to doubt the 
strength and stability of every part of the structure, for he had 
employed all the precautions that he could imagine useful, as sug- 
gested by his own experience and consideration, or by the zeal 
and talents of his very able and faithful assistants ; yet the bare 
possibility, that some weak point might have escaped his and their 



* J^ THOMAS TELFORD. 335 

vigilance in a work so new, kept the whole structure constantly in 
review before his mind's eye, to examine if he could discover a 
point that did not contribute its share to the perfection of the 
whole. In this, as in all his great works, he employed, as sub- 
engineers, men capable of appreciating and acting on his ideas ; 
but he was no rigid stickler for his own plans, for he most readily 
acquiesced in the reasonable suggestions of his assistants, and 
thus identified them with the success of the work. In ascertain- 
ing the strength of the materials for the Menai bridge, he em- 
ployed men of the highest rank for scientific character and attain- 
ments. 

The genius of Telford, as has been stated, was not confined to 
his profession. Dr. Currie says, in his life of Burns, that a great 
number of manuscript poems were found among the papers of 
Burns, addressed to him by admirers of his genius, from different 
parts of Britain, as well as Ireland and America. Among these 
was a poetical epistle of superior merit, by Telford, and addressed 
to Burns, and in the versification generally employed by that poet 
himself. Its object is to recommend him to other subjects of a 
serious nature, similar to that of the Cottar's Saturday Night, and 
the reader will find that the advice is happily enforced by example 
We extract a portion of it : — 

" Pursue, O Bums, thy happy style, 
' Those manner-painting strains,' that while 
They bear me northward mony a mile, 

Recall the days 
When tender joys, with pleasing smile, 

Blest my young ways. 

I see my fond companions rise ; 

I join the happy village joys ; 

I see our green hills touch the skies. 

And through the wood 
I hear the river's rushing noise — 

Its roaring flood. 

No distant Swiss with warmer glow 
E'er heard his native music flow, 
Nor could his wishes stronger grow 

Than stiU have mine, 
When up this rural mount I go 

With songs of thine. 

O happy bard ! thy generous flame 
Was given to raise thy country's fame ; 
For this thy charming numbers came — 

Thy matchless lays : 
Then sing, and save her virtuous name 

To latest days." 
15 



gi6 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

Mr. Telford was not more remarkable for his great professional 
abilities, than for his sterling worth in private life. His easiness 
of access, and the playfulness of his disposition, even to the close 
of life, endeared him to a numerous circle of friends, including 
all the most distinguished men of his time. He was the patron 
of merit in others, wherever it was to be found ; and he was the 
means of raising many deserving individuals from obscurity to 
situations where their talents were seen, and soon appreciated. 
Up to the last period of his life, he was fond of young men, and 
of their company, provided they delighted in learning. His 
punctuality was universal. 

In the course of his very active life, he found time to acquire a 
knowledge of the Latin, French, and German languages. He 
understood Algebra well, but thought it led too much to abstrac- 
tion, and too little to practice. Mathematical investigation he 
also held rather cheaply, and always, when practicable, resorted 
to experiment to determine the relative value of any plans on 
which it was his business to decide. He dehghted to employ the 
vast in nature, yet did not despise minuticB, a point too seldom 
attended to by projectors. 

For some years before his death, he gradually retired from 
professional employment, and he latterly amused his leisure hours 
by writing a detailed account of the principal undertakings which 
he had planned, and lived to see executed. The immediate cause 
of Mr. Telford's death was a repetition of severe bilious attacks, 
to which he had for some years been subject, and which, at length, 
proved fatal. His life, pi'olonged by temperance and cheerfulness, 
at length drew to a close, and he expired at his house, in Abing- 
don street, Westminster, September 2d, 1834. 



EDMUND CARTWRIGHT, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE POWER-LOOM. 

Edmund Cartwright was born in the year 1743, and was the 
fourth son of William Cartwright, Esq. of Marnham, in Notting- 
hamshire. Being intended for the church, Edmund at the usual 
age was entered of University College, Oxford ; from whence he 
was subsequently elected a Fellow of Magdalen College. He early 
distinguished himself by his literary attainments, an evidence of 



EDMUND CARTWRIGHT. 387 

which he gave to the world while yet a young man by the publica- 
tion of a small volume of poems, which was very favorably re- 
ceived. About the year 1774, also, he became a contributor to 
the Monthly Review ; for which he continued to write during the 
following ten years. 

For the first forty years of his life he had never given any at- 
tention to the subject of mechanics ; although, as was recollected 
long afterwards, his genius for invention in that department had 
once displayed itself, while at his father's house during one of his 
college vacations, in some improvements which he made on an 
agricultural machine which happened to attract his notice. But 
this exercise of his ingenuity, being out of the line of his pursuits 
at that time, led to no other attempts of the kind, nor to any far- 
ther application of his thoughts to such matters. 

The circumstances which many years after this led him to the 
invention of his weaving machine, or power-loom, as it is commonly 
called, cannot be better described than they have been by himself 
in the following statement, — first printed in the Supplement to the 
Encyclopsedia Britannica. " Happening," he says, "to be at Mat- 
lock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentle- 
men of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's 
spinning machinery. One of the company observed that as soon 
as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, 
and so much cotton spun, that hands would never be found to 
weave it. To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then 
set his wits to work to invent a weaving-mill. This brought on a 
conversation upon the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen 
unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable ; and in de- 
fence of their opinion they adduced arguments which I was cer- 
tainly incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally 
ignorant of the subject, having never at the time seen a person 
weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing 
by remarking that there had been lately exhibited in London an 
automaton figure which played at chess. Now you will not assert, 
gentlemen, said I, that it is more difficult to construct a machine 
that shall weave, than one that shall make all the variety of moves 
that are required in that complicated game. Some time afterwards 
a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, 
it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception 
I then had of the business, there could be only three movements, 
which were to follow each other in succession, there could be little 
difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I 
immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into 
eff*ect. As soon as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to put 



338 FOREIGN MECHANICS 

in the warp, which was of such materials as sai].cloth is usually 
made of. To my great dehght, a piece of cloth, such as it was, 
was the produce. As I had never before turned my thoughts to 
mechanism, either in theory or practice, nor had seen a loom at 
work, nor knew any thing of its construction, you will readily sup- 
pose that rny first loom must have been a most rude piece of ma- 
chinery. The warp was laid perpendicularly, the reed fell with a 
force of at least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw 
the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. 
In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the 
machine, at a slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving in 
my simplicity that I had accomplished all that was required, I then 
secured what I thought a most valuable property by a patent, 4th 
of April, 1785. This being done, I then condescended to see how 
other people wove ; and you will guess my astonishment when I 
compared their easy modes of operation with mine. Availing 
myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom in its general 
principles nearly as they are now made. But it was not till the 
year 1787, that I completed my invention, when I took out my 
last weaving patent, August the 1st of that year." 

Dr. Cartwright's children still remember often seeing their father 
about this time walking to and fro apparently in deep meditation, 
and occasionally throwing his arms from side to side ; on which 
they used to be told that he was thinking of weaving and throwing 
the shuttle. From the moment indeed when his attention was first 
turned to the invention of the power-loom, mechanical contrivance 
became the grand occupying subject of his thoughts. With that 
sanguineness of disposition which seems to be almost a necessary 
part of the character of an inventor, he looked upon difficulties, 
when he met with them in any of his attempts,- as only affording 
his genius an occasion for a more distinguished triumph ; nor did 
he allow even repeated failures for a moment to dishearten him. 
Some time after he had brought his first loom to perfection, a 
manufacturer, who had called upon him to see it at work, after 
expressing his admiration of the ingenuity displayed in it, remarked 
that, wonderful as was Mr. Cartwright's mechanical skill, there 
was one thing that would effectually baffle him, — the weaving, 
namely, of patterns in checks, or, in other words, the combining, 
in the same web, of a pattern, or fancy figure, with the crossing 
colors which constitute the check. Mr. Cartwright made no reply 
to this observation at the time ; but some weeks after, on receiving 
a second visit from the same person, he had the pleasure of show- 
ing him a piece of muslin, of the description mentioned, beautifully 
executed by machinery. The man is said to have been so much 



EDMUND CARTWRIGHT. 339 

astonished, that he roundly declared his conviction that some 
agency more than human must have been called in to assist on 
the occasion. 

The weaving factory which was erected at Doncaster, by some 
of Cartwright''s friends, with his license, was unsuccessful ; and 
another establishment containing five hundred looms, built at Man- 
Chester, was destroyed in 1790 by an exasperated mob. The in- 
vention had surmounted all opposition at the time of his death, and 
is stated then to have increased in use so rapidly as to perform the 
labor of two hundred thousand men ! 

Cartwright's next invention was to comb wool Jry machinery, which 
excited if possible a still greater ferment among the working classes 
than even the power-looms. The whole body of wool combers 
petitioned parHament to suppress the obnoxious machines, but 
without effect. These machines began to be used by some manu- 
facturers, who at the same time attempted to evade Cartwright's 
claim as their inventor. After a trial which occupied twenty-six 
hours, he established his right, and gained a verdict of one thou- 
sand pounds against the pirates. 

For several other inventions in agriculture and manufactures he 
took out patents, and for others premiums were bestowed upon 
him by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and the Board 
of Agriculture. Even the steam engine engaged his attention ; 
and an account of some improvements which he proposed in its 
mechanism may be found in Reese''s Cyclopedia. Indeed, so long 
as forty years ago, while residing at Eltham in Lincolnshire, he 
used frequently to tell his son that, if he lived to be a man, he 
would see both ships and land-carriages impelled by steam. It is 
also certain that at that early period he had constructed a model 
of a steam engine attached to a barge, which he explained about 
the year 1793, in the presence of his family, to Robert Fulton, 
then a student of painting under West. Even so late as the year 
1822, Dr. Cartwright, notwithstanding his very advanced age, and 
although his attention was much occupied by other philosophical 
speculations, was actively engaged in endeavoring to contrive a 
plan of propelling land-carriages by steam. 

His death, however, at Hastings, in October, 1823, prevented 
the completion of this, as well as of many other designs in the 
prosecution of which he had been employed. His enthusiasm for 
mechanical invention continued unabated to the last ; and indeed 
his general energy both of mind and body was very little impaired 
vip to within a short period of his death. In a letter to his brother, 
Major Cartwright, dated 24th April, 1819, he says, " I this day 
entered into my 77th year in as good health and spirits, thank 



340 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

God, as I have done on any one birthday for the last half century. 
I am moving about my farm from eight o'clock in the morning till 
four in the afternoon, without suffering the least fatigue. I sent 
in my claim to the Board of Agriculture for their premium for a 
cure of the mildew^ on wheat, but have not yet heard that it was 
admitted. I don't know whether I ever mentioned to you a ma- 
chine for dibbling or planting wheat, which I have brought to great 
perfection. I have also a very material improvement on the 
stocks respecting ploughs and wheel-carriages ; but of this I shall 
say nothing till I have brought it to the proof, which I hope to do 
very shortly ; when you shall be immediately informed of the re- 
suit, whether favorable or not." The following verses, also, which 
he sent to a friend not long before his death, will show at once 
the undiminished ardor and activity of his mind, and the generous 
and philanthropic motives by which his enthusiasm was sustained 
and directed : — 

" Since even Newton owns that all he wrought 
Was due to industry and patient thought, 
What shall restrain the impulse which I feel 
To forward, as I may, the public weal ? 
By Ms example fired, to break away, 
In search of truth, tluough darkness into day? 
He tried, on venturous wing, the loftiest flight, 
An eagle soaring to the fount of light ! 
I cling to earth, to earth-born arts confined, 
A worm of science of the humblest kind. 
Our powers, though wide apart as earth and heaven, 
For different purposes alike were given : 
Though mine the arena of inglorious fame. 
Where pride and folly would the strife disdain, 
With mind unwearied still will I engage 
In spite of failing vigor and of age, 
Nor quit the combat till I quit the stage : 
Or, if in idleness my life shall close, 
Let well-earned victory justify repose !" 

The disposition of this excellent man, indeed, naturally carried 
him throughout his life to promote, by every means in his power, 
the benefit of his fellow creatures ; and the following incident is 
perhaps worthy of being recorded, as illustrating how this tendency 
used to display itself in other parts of his conduct, as well as in 
his zeal for mechanical improvements. While he held the living 
of Goadly Maxwood, in Leicestershire, he applied himself so as- 
siduously to the study of medicine that he acquired extensive 
knowledge and eminent skill in that science, and was in the habit 
of prescribing to his poorer parishioners with great success. 

Actuated by such feelings as those we have described. Dr. 
Cartwright was as free as any man who ever lived from jealousy 
or illiberality towards other inventors. In fact, it may be safely 



EDMUND CARTWRIGHT. 341 

asserted, that had he not carried his frankness and want of suspi- 
cion, as well as his indifference to pecuniary gains, beyond the 
limits of worldly prudence, his ingenious contrivances would in 
all probability have been productive of much greater benefit to 
himself than they ever actually were. So careless was he in re- 
gard to retaining in his own possession the valuable ideas with 
which his mind was continually teeming, that he has been fre- 
quently known to have given the most important assistance by his 
suggestions to other persons engaged like himself in mechanical 
pursuits, and afterwards to have forgotten the circumstance as 
entirely as if it had never happened. Nay, so completely did 
what he was engaged about at the moment occupy his mind, that 
he sometimes forgot his own inventions, and other productions, 
of an older date, even when his attention was particularly called 
to them. One day, one of his daughters having chanced to repeat 
in his presence some lines from a poem entitled the " Prince of 
Peace," which appeared in his volume already mentioned, he ex. 
claimed, to her surprise and amusement, " Those are beautiful 
lines, child ; where did you meet with them ?" On another occa- 
sion, being shown the model of a machine, he examined it with 
great attention, and at last observed, that the inventor must have 
been a man of great ingenuity, and that he himself should feel 
very proud if he had been the author of the contrivance ; nor could 
he be immediately convinced of what was proved to be the case, 
namely, that it was a machine of his own. 

Dr. Cartwright was defrauded of the pecuniary profits which 
he might reasonably have expected from his great invention of the 
power-loom, by various accidents, and especially by the burning 
of a manufactory, containing five hundred of his machines, almost 
immediately after it was built. It may also be added, that after 
he had demonstrated the practicability of weaving by machinery, 
other inventors applied themselves to the devising of contrivances 
for that purpose slightly different from his — a comparatively easy 
task, even where the new invention was not merely a disguised 
infringement of his patent, while in those cases in which it was in 
reality nothing more than such an infringement, it was yet so pro- 
tected, that it could hardly be reached and put down as such. On 
these and other accounts, and in no small degree owing to Dr. 
Cartwright's carelessness about his own interests, the power-loom 
only began, in point of fact, to be extensively introduced about the 
year 1801, the very year in which his patent expired. So gene- 
rally, however, was it felt among those best entitled to express an 
opinion on the subject, that to him really belonged the merit of the 
invention, that in the year 1808, several merchants and manufac- 



342 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

turers of Manchester and its neighborhood, to none of whom he 
was personally known, held a meeting to consider the propriety 
of presenting to the Lords of the Treasury a memorial of his emi- 
nent services, and of the losses he had sustained through the pira- 
cies and other unfortunate circumstances to which we have alluded. 
In consequence of this and other applications in his favor, the sum 
of ten thousand pounds was soon after granted him by parliament. 
An amount, although munificent as a present, yet barely adequate 
even to repay the sums the doctor had expended in his experi- 
ments ; and his family, after all, reaped no pecuniary benefit 
from his ingenious and persevering labors. This national recog- 
nition of his claims may be taken as a sufficient answer to some 
attempts that have been occasionally made to rob Dr. Cartwright 
of the credit of having been the author of one of the most valuable 
presents ever made to the manufacturing industry of his country. 
As a man of education and literary habits, the inventor of the 
power-loom, notwithstanding his deviation from his original track 
of thought and study when he began to give his attention to me- 
chanics, may yet be said to have come even to that new line of 
pursuit with certain acquired advantages. He brought with him 
at least a mind awakened to some knowledge of its own powers 
by the general cultivation it had received, and not undisciplined 
by its accustomed exercises to habits of speculation and inquiry 



JOHN WHITEHURST. 

This individual, whose philosophical and mechanical researches 
have met with such universal attention, was born in Congleton, in 
Cheshire, April 10, 1713 : he was the son of a clock and watch 
maker of the same name in that town. 

Of the early part of his life little is known. He who dies at a 
very advanced age leaves few behind him to communicate anec- 
dotes of his youth. On his leaving school, where the education 
he received was certainly very defective, he was bred up by his 
father to his own trade ; in which, as in other mechanical and sci- 
entific pursuits, he soon gave intimations of future eminence. 

At about the age of twenty-one, his eagerness afler new ideas 
carried him to Dublin, having heard of an ingenious piece of me- 
chanism in that city, consisting of a clock with certain curious ap- 
pendages, which he was extremely desirous of seeing, and no less 




JOHN WHITEHURST. 



15* 



i 



JOHN WHITEHURST. 345 

AM than of conversing with the maker. On his arrival, however, 
he could neither procure a sight of the former, nor draw the least 
hint from the latter concerning it. Thus disappointed, he thought 
of an expedient to accomplish his design. He accordingly took 
up his residence in the house of the mechanic, paying the more 
liberally for his board, as he had hopes of thence more readily 
obtaining the indulgence so eagerly wished for. As happened, he 
was accommodated with a room directly over that in which the 
favorite piece was kept carefuUy locked. The so long wished for 
opportunity soon occurred ; for the artist being one day employed 
in exaiTiining the machine, was suddenly called down stairs. White- 
hurst, ever on the alert, softly slipped into the room, inspected the 
machine, and having comprehended its principles, escaped undis- 
covered to his own apartment. His curiosity thus gratified, he 
shortly bid the machinist farewell, and returned to his father in 
England. 

About two years after his adventure in Ireland, he left the place 
of his nativity, and entered into business for himself at Derby. 
His reputation as a clock and watch maker soon became very ex- 
tended, and his character as a citizen such that he was enrolled as 
burgess. 

He was also consulted in almost all the undertakings in the coun- 
try round, where the aid of superior skill in mechanics, pneumat- 
ics, and hydraulics was required. His dwelhng became the resort 
of the ingenious and scientific from every quarter, and frequently 
to such a degree as to impede him in the regular prosecution of his 
pursuits. 

In 1775, when the act for the regulation of gold coin was pass- 
ed, he was unexpectedly appointed to the office of stamper. In 
1778, he published his " Inquiry into the Original State and Form- 
ation of the Earth ;" being a work of many years' labor, and one 
by which he obtained considerable reputation. He was chosen 
a member of the Royal Society, May 13, 1779. He was also a 
member of some other philosophical societies, which admitted him 
to their respective bodies without his previous knowledge. But so 
remote was he from every thing that might savor of ostentation, 
that this circumstance was only known to very few of his confiden- 
tial friends. Previous to* his admission, he had inserted several 
different papers in their philosophical transactions. 

In the summer of 1783, he made a second visit to Ireland, with 
a view to examine the Giant ''s Causeway, and other northern parts 
of that island, which he found to be almost entirely composed of 
volcanic matter ; an account and representations of which were 
inserted in the second edition of his " Inquiry." During this ex- 



346 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

cursion he erected an engine for raising water from a well to the 
summit of a hill in a bleaching ground at Tullidoi, in the county 
of Tyrone. This engine was worked by a current of water, 
and for its utility and ingenuity was unequalled, perhaps, in any 
country. 

In 1787 he pubhshed his " Attempt towards obtaining Invariable 
Measures of Length, Capacity, and Weight, from the Mensura- 
tion of Time." 

Though for some years previous to his death Mr. Whitehurst 
felt himself declining, yet his ever active mind remitted not of its 
accustomed exertion. Even in his last illness, before being con- 
fined entirely to his chamber, he was proceeding at intervals to 
complete a Treatise on Chimneys, Ventilation, and Garden Stoves, 
including some other plans for promoting the health and comfort 
of society. He was sensible of his approaching dissolution ; and 
on Monday, February 18, 1788, in the seventy-fifth year of his 
age, terminated his laborious and useful life. He died in the very 
house where had recently lived and died another celebrated self- 
taught genius, James Ferguson. 

However respectable Mr. Whitehurst may have been in mechan- 
ics, he was of far higher account with his acquaintances and friends 
on the score of his moral qualities. To say nothing of the upright- 
ness and punctuality of his dealings in all transactions relative to 
business ; few men have been known to possess more benevolent 
affections than he, or, being possessed of such, to direct them more 
judiciously to their proper ends. He was a philanthropist in the 
truest sense of the word. Though well known to many of the 
great, to whose good graces flattery is generally the readiest path, 
it is to be recorded to his honor, that he never once stooped to 
that degrading mode of obtaining favor, which he regarded as the 
lowest vice of the lowest mind. He had, indeed, a settled abhor- 
rence, not of flattery only, but of every other deviation from truth, 
at whose shrine he may be said to have been a constant worship, 
per. The truth of things he was daily, more or less, in the habit 
of investigating, and ti'uth of action he exemplified in the whole 
tenor of a long and singularly useful life. 



JAMES HARGREAYES, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE SPINNING JENNY. 

This individual was a weaver at Stand Hill, near Blackburn : 
though ilUterate and humble, he must be regarded as one of the 
great inventors and improvers of the cotton manufacture. His 
principal invention, and one which showed high mechanical genius, 
was the spinning jenny ; — a machine, as tradition affirms, which 
owed its title to a fair damsel by the name of Jane. The date of 
this invention was some years before Arkwright obtained the patent 
for his water frame ; and differs so completely from that machine, 
that there can be no suspicion of its being other than a perfectly 
original invention. 

It may be necessary to explain to some readers, that the cotton 
was formerly, and is still, reduced from the state of the fleecy roll 
called a carding, into the state of spun thread, by repeated, though 
similar operations ; the first draws out the carding, and gives it a 
very slight twist, so as to make it into a loose thread, about the 
thickness of a candle-wick, in which state it is called a roving or 
slubbin ; the subsequent processes draw out the roving much finer, 
and at length reduce it into yarn. 

The jenny, like Arkwright's machine, was intended to spin the 
roving into yam ; but, unlike Arkwright ''s, was incapable of being 
applied to the preparation of the roving itself. 

Hargreaves is said to have received the original idea of his 
machine from seeing a one-thread wheel overturned upon the floor, 
when both the wheel and spindle continued to revolve. The spindle 
was thus thrown from a horizontal into an upright position ; and 
the thought seems to have struck him, that if a number of spindles 
were placed upright, and side by side, several threads might be 
spun at once. He contrived a frame, in one part of which he 
placed eight rovings in a row, and in another part a row of eight 
spindles. The rovings, when extended to the spindles, passed be- 
tween two horizontal bars of wood forming a clasp, which opened 
and shut somewhat like a parallel ruler ; when pressed together, 
this clasp held the threads fast. A certain portion of roving being 
extended from the spindles to the wooden clasp, the clasp was 
closed, and was then drawn along the horizontal frame to a con- 
siderable distance from the spindles, by which the threads were 
lengthened out, and reduced to *^e proper tenuity ; this was don© 



348 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

with the spinner's left hand, and his right hand, at the same time, 
turned a wheel, which caused the spindles to revolve rapidly, and 
thus the roving was spun into yarn. By returning the clasp to its 
first situation, and letting down a presser wire, the yarn was wound 
upon the spindle. 

With this admirable machine, though at first rudely constructed, 
Hargreaves and his family spun weft for his own weaving. Aware 
of the value of the invention, but not extending his ambition to a 
patent, he kept it as secret as possible for a time, and used it 
merely in his own business. A machine of such powers could 
not, however, be long concealed ; but when it became the subject 
of rumor, instead of gaining for its author admiration and grati- 
tude, the spinners raised an outcry that it would throw multitudes 
out of employment, and a mob broke into Hargreave''s house, and 
destroyed his jenny. So great was the persecution he suffered, 
and the danger in which he was placed, that this victim of popular 
ignorance was compelled to flee, as the inventor of the fly -shuttle 
had befdre him. Thus the neighborhood where the machine was 
invented lost the benefit of it, yet without preventing its general 
adoption ; — the common and appropriate punishment of the igno- 
rance and selfishness which oppose mechanical improvements. 

Hargreaves retired to Nottingham in 1768, where he entered 
into partnership with Mr. Thomas James, a joiner, who raised 
sufficient money to enable them to erect a small mill. He took 
out a patent for the jenny in 1770, the year after Arkwright had 
taken out his. The patent was " for a method of making a wheel 
or an engine of an entire new construction, and never before made 
use of, in order for spinning, drawing, and twisting of cotton, and 
to be managed by one person only ; and that the wheel or engine 
will spin, draw, and twist sixteen or more threads at one time, by 
a turn or motion of one hand and a draw of the other." 

The following is the inventor's description of the process : — 
" One person, with his or her right hand, turns the wheel, and 
with the left hand takes hold of the clasps, and therewith draws out 
the cotton from the slubbin box ; and being twisted by the turn of 
the wheel in the drawing out, then a piece of wood is lifted by the 
toe, which lets down a presser wire, so as to press the threads so 
drawn out and twisted, in order to wind or put the same regularly 
upon bobbins which are placed on the spindles." The number of 
spindles in the jenny was at first eight ; when the patent was ob- 
tained it was sixteen ; it soon came to be twenty or thirty ; and 
no less than one hundred and twenty have since been used. 

Before quitting Lancashire, Hargreaves had made a few jennies 
for sale ; and the importance of the invention being universa 'w 



JAMES HARGREAVES. 349 

appreciated, the interests of the manufacturers and weavers brought 
it into general use, in spite of all opposition. A desperate effort, 
though, was made in 1779 — probably in a period of temporary 
distress — to put down the machine. A mob rose and scoured the 
country for several miles around Blackburn, demolishing the jen- 
nies, and with them all the carding engines, water frames, and 
every machine turned by water or horses. It is said the rioters 
spared the jennies which had only twenty spindles, as these were 
by this time admitted to be useful, but those with a greater num- 
ber, being considered mischievous, were destroyed, or cut down to 
the prescribed dimensions. 

It may seem strange that not merely the working classes, but 
even the middle and higher ranks of people, entertained a great 
drea,d of machinery. Not perceiving the tendency of any inven- 
tion which improved and cheapened the manufacture, to cause an 
extended demand for its products, and thereby to give employment 
to more hands than it superseded, those classes were alarmed lest 
the poor rates should be burdened with workmen thrown idle. 
They therefore connived at, and even actually joined in the opposi- 
tion to the machinery, and did all in their power to screen the 
rioters from punishment. 

This devastating outrage left effects more permanent than have 
usually resulted from such commotions. Spinners and other capi- 
tahsts were driven from the neighborhood of Blackburn to Man- 
Chester and other places, and in consequence it was many years 
before cotton spinning was resumed at Blackburn. 

Hargreaves went to Nottingham in 1768, and worked for a 
while in the employment of Mr. Shipley, for whom he secretly 
made some jennies in his dwelling. He was induced, by the 
offers of Mr. Thomas James, to enter into partnership with him ; 
and the latter raised sufficient money, on mortgage and loan, to 
build a small mill in Hockley, where they spun yarn for the 
hosiers with the jenny. The patent was obtained in 1770. 

Finding that several of the Lancashire manufacturers were 
using the jenny, Hargreaves gave notice of actions against them : 
the manufacturers met, and sent a delegate to Nottingham, who 
offered Hargreaves three thousand pounds for permission to use 
the machine ; but he at first demanded seven thousand, and at last 
stood out for four thousand. The negotiation being broken off, 
the actions proceeded ; but before they came to trial, Hargreaves' 
attorney was informed that his client, before leaving Lancashire, 
had sold some jennies to obtain clothing for his children, of whom 
he had six or seven. In consequence, the attorney gave up the 
actions, in despair of obtaining a verdict. 



350 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

The spinning business was carried on by the partners with mo. 
derate success, till the death of Mr. Hargreaves, which took place 
at his own house, near the mill, in April, 1778. In his will he 
directed a guinea to be given to the vicar for preaching his funeral 
sermon. His widow received four hundred pounds from Mr. 
James, for her husband''s share in the business. 

It is a consolation to the admirers of genius to know, that this 
benefactor to his country was enabled to live in comfort, though 
not in affluence, on the fruits of his invention. 



JOSEPH BRAMAH, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE HYBROSTATIC PRESS. 

Joseph Bramah, one of the greatest mechanics England has 
ever produced, was the oldest son of a small farmer, and was born 
on the 13th of April, 1749, at Stainsborough, in Yorkshire. He 
exhibited at a very early age an unusual talent for mechanical 
contrivances, and succeeded, when quite a boy, in making two 
violoncellos, which were found to be very tolerable instruments. 
His hours of relaxation from the business of the farm were gene- 
rally spent in a neighboring blacksmith-shop, between whose 
tenant and himself was shared the merit of several ingenious 
pieces of mechanism. 

An accidental lameness in his ankles unfitting him for agricul- 
tural labor, he was apprenticed in his sixteenth year to a carpenter 
and joiner. At the expiration of his " time," he went to London 
in search of employment, where, by his industry and exertions, he 
soon became a master. His now extended means enabled him to 
indulge his mechanical taste, and he quickly became known as a 
man possessing a fine invention as well as great executive skill. 
In 1784, he produced the admirable lock which bears his name, 
and which was considered the most perfect mechanism of its kind 
that had ever been produced, and even to this day is scarcely 
rivalled for safety, durability, elegance, and simplicity. The pe- 
culiar character of this lock depends on the arrangement of a 
number of levers, or sliders, to preserve, when at rest, a uniform 
situation, ajid to be only pressed down by the key to a certain 
depth, which nothing but the key can ascertain, — ^the levers not 
having any stop to retain them in their required situation, except 



JOSEPH BRAMAH. 



351 



that which forms part of the key. He added afterwards some 
modifications, for allowing the key to be varied at pleasure. The 
report that one of these locks had been readily opened before a 
committee of the House of Commons, by means of a common 
quill, was a gross misrepresentation of the fact ; the quill having, 
in reality, been previously cut into the required shape from the 
true key. An experiment which was only made to show the per- 
fection of the workmanship, and the very small force requisite to 
overcome the resistance when properly applied. It has been 
stated that one of these locks, after having been in use many 
years, and opened and locked not less than four hundred thousand 
times, was apparently as perfect as when first constructed. The 
invention for which he will probably be best known to posterity, 
is his hydrostatic press, which is described in the succeeding para- 
graph : — 

The principle of this machine is this : if a given pressure, as 
that given by a plug forced inwards upon a square inch of the 
surface of a fluid confined in a vessel, is suddenly communicated 
to every square inch of the vessel's surface, however large, and 
to every inch of the surface of any body immersed in it, — thus 
if we attempt to force a cork into a vessel full of water, — the 
pressure will not merely be felt by the portion of the water 
directly in the range of the cork, but by all parts of the mass 
alike ; and the liability of the bottle to break, supposing it to be 
of uniform strength throughout, will be as great in one place as 
another. And a bottle will break at the point wherever it is the 
weakest, however that point may be situated relatively to the place 
where the cork is applied ; and the effect will be the same whether 
the stopper be inserted at the top, bottom, or side of the vessel. 
It is this power which operates with such astonishing effect in the 
Hydrostatic Press. The annexed engraving represents a press 
made of the strongest timbers, the foundation of which is com- 




monly laid in solid masonry. A B is a small cylinder, in which 
moves the piston of a forcing pump, and C D is a large cylinder, 



352 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

in which also moves a piston, having the upper end of its rod 
pressing against a moveable plank E, between which and the 
large beam above is placed the substance to be subjected to 
pressure, as, for example, a pile of new-bound books. By the ac- 
tion of the pump handle, water is raised into the small cylinder, 
and on depressing the piston, it is forced through a valve at B into 
the large cylinder, and raises the piston D, which expends its 
whole force on the bodies confined at E. Now, since whatever 
force is applied to any one portion of the fluid extends alike to 
every part, therefore the force which is exerted by the pump upon 
the smaller column, is transmitted unimpaired to every inch of 
the larger column, and tends to raise the moveable plank, E, with 
a force as much greater, in the aggregate, than that impressed 
upon the surface of the smaller, as this surface is smaller than 
that of the larger column ; or (which is the same thing) as the 
number of square inches in the end of the piston B is less than 
that of the piston D. The power of such a machine is enormously 
great ; for supposing the hand to be applied at the end of the 
handle with a force of only ten pounds, and that this handle or 
lever is so constructed as to multiply that force but five times, the 
force with which the smaller piston will descend will be equal to 
fifty pounds ; and let us suppose that the head of the larger piston 
contains the smaller fifty times, then the force exerted to raise the 
press board will equal two thousand five hundred pounds. A man 
can indeed easily exert ten times the force supposed, and can 
therefore exert a force upon the substance under pressure equal 
to twenty-five thousand pounds ! 

Here, too, the mere application of the puny force of a child's 
arm is sufficient to tear up trees by the roots, and crush bars of 
iron as though they were pieces of wax. If as an invention for 
developing power it is equal in importance to the steam engine, 
but unlike it, its use is not limited by any circumstances of a local 
nature, for it does not depend on a consumption of any extraneous 
substance whatever ; two small pipes, each fitted with a piston 
and a little water, which for years needs no replenishing, gives to 
an ordinary man in all situations the strength of a giant. 

This machine, one of the most admirable in the whole compass 
of the arts, has been called, by some envious blockheads, " Pas- 
caPs Machine;" and, in their descriptions, they almost say Pascal 
invented it ; but that ingenious philosopher has about as much 
claim to this great honor, as the old woman who first discovered 
her beard and her wrinkles in her polished pewter platter, had to 
be considered as the inventress of the Newtonian telescope ! 
Before Bramah's time, Bonifaces were obliged to trudge to the 



JOSEPH BRAMAH. 353 

cellar for every drop of the beverage they measured out to their 
customers, or have their barrels placed in waiting on the same 
level with their parlor. In most states of the weather this was a 
hazardous position, and in some atmospheres very injurious ; but 
Bramah, by his elegant "Beer Machine," enabled them to pump 
up into the measure, in the bar, the fermented juice contained in 
the various casks in the cellar. 

Machinery for smoothing surfaces was another of his elaborate 
and beautiful specimens of mechanism. It was erected at the 
Woolwich Arsenal with perfect success : the axis of the principal 
shaft was supported on a piston in a vessel of oil, which diminished 
the friction considerably, and could be accurately measured by 
means of a small forcing pump. He introduced also a mode of 
turning spherical surfaces either convex or concave, by a tool 
moveable on an axis perpendicular to that of the lathe ; and fixing 
a curved tool in the same position, he cut out concentric sheets. 
He also described machinery for making paper in large sheets ; 
for printing by means of a roller, composed of a number of circu- 
lar plates, turning on the same axis, each bearing twenty-six let- 
ters capable of being shifted at pleasure, so as to express any 
single line by a proper combination of the plates. This was put 
in practice to number bank notes, and enable the clerks to do six 
where before they could only number one. 

In 1812, he produced his project for main pipes, which in some 
parts was more ingenious than practicable. In describing them, 
he mentions having employed an hydrostatic pressure equal to that 
of a column of water twenty thousand feet high, (about four tons 
for every inch.) He also asserts that he can form five hundred 
tubes, each five feet long, capable of sliding within each other, 
and of being extended in a few seconds, by the pressure of air 
forced into them, to a length of two thousand five hundred feet ; 
with this power he proposed to raise wrecks, and regulate the 
descent of weights. His improvements in wheel carriages con- 
sisted in fixing each wheel to a separate moveable axis, having its 
bearings at two distinct points of its length, but loosely enclosed 
between those points in a cylinder filled with oil ; in another, op- 
posite wheels were to be fixed on the same axis, though with the 
power of turning very stiflly round it to lessen the lateral motion 
on rough roads ; and he suggests pneumatic springs, formed by 
pistons sliding in cylinders, as a substitute for springs of metal : 
latterly he improved the machines for sawing stones and timber, 
and suggested some alterations in the construction of bridges and 
canal locks. His last illness was occasioned by a severe cold, 



354 FOREIGN MECHANICS. 

taken during some experiments in tearing up of trees in a forest. 
He died on the 9th of December, 1814. 

Bramah was a sincere and unostentatious follower of the pre- 
cepts of Christianity : his conversation was animated, and to much 
facility of expression he added the most perfect independence of 
opinion : he was a cheerful, benevolent, and affectionate man — 
neat and methodical in his habits — and knew well how to temper 
liberality with economy. Greatly to his honor, he often kept his 
workmen employed, solely for their sake, when the stagnation of 
trade prevented him disposing of the products of their labor. As 
a manufacturer, he was distinguished for his promptitude and in- 
tegrity, and celebrated for the exquisite finish which he gave to 
his productions. 



ANECDOTES, DESCRIPTIONS, 

ETC., ETC., 
RELATING TO THE MECHANIC ARTS. 



Progress of Invention illustrated. 

The progressive stages through which even some of our sim- 
plest tools have to pass, ere they arrive at their final state of per- 
fection, is sometimes astonishing. The simple process of drawing 
a cork will furnish the necessary illustrations. 

The inventor of bottles is unknown ; but these 
were in use centuries before corks were thought 
of, and these, agam, were employed for generations 
before a convenient method was hit upon for their 
extraction. The exhilarating contents could then 
only be tasted by what was technically called " be- 
heading the bottle." More expert practitioners 
had many opportunities of showing their skill in 
removing the impediment by a dexterous twist 
of the fingers ; or, if that were impracticable, 
teeth were called in as their natural auxiliaries : 
here, however, in many cases, it was doubtful 
whether the cork would follow the teeth, or the 
teeth remain in the cork ; and if an obstinate 
remnant would remain, a nail was a ready means 
of dislodging the stubborn plug, particle by par- 
ticle. When at any time, through an impatience 
of the nibbling labor, or a despair of accom- 
plishing a clean extraction at all, it was resolved 
to send the obstacle the wrong way ; this was 
then, indeed, an invaluable instrument. A pair 

25 




356 



ANECDOTES, 





of skewers, or forks, inserted " witchwise," 
would sometimes accomplish those difficult cases 
which had baffled the exertions of all the natur- 
als. Twisting the lower extremity of the " bare 
bodkin" into a spiral form, and adding a handle 
to it, was the thought of a master genius ; and in 
this shape mankind for ages were contented to 
avail themselves of its services ; and even at 
the present hour, some barbarous, uncouth coun- 
tries and districts may be named where it is still 
the extractor in most general use. In our coun- 
try, it must be in the recollection of many, that 
this was in numerous cases a very inefficient 
machine ; and no one hostess ever before con. 
ferred such a favor upon all bottle suckei's as 
that lady who first conceived the idea of placing 
a hutton at the end of the screw-worm. Hence- 
forth the decanting process was a mere matter 
of routine. When, in her green old age, death 
laid his hand on the inventress, a piratical screw- 
maker also took to himself the credit and profit 
of the button. Yet the fair originator shall be 
ne''er forgotten, even although her master-piece, 
^ some years later, was eclipsed, and may 
^ yet be superseded by the King's screw, 
which can receive no addition to its beauty 
or convenience. 

Another illustration can be found in the 
shoemaker^ s awl, which is a much simpler 
instrument, even than the cork-screw. The 
first awls were plain, conical punches, that 
made a round hole in the leather. It was 
^ soon discovered that this form was erro- 

' neous, for the hole thus made was never 

more than half filled with the two waxed threads crossing each 
other. Geometry teaches us that these two threads, being like 
two small circles enclosed by a third, occupied but one half of the 
space of the hole. 

The conical awl was then flattened, and had an oval form as to 
its section given to it ; and some time afterwards the awl was so 
filed as to give it four faces, the section being something in the 
shape of a lozenge ; but stilil the awl was straight. Although this 
straightness is useful in many cases, yet it was improper in the 
business of shoemaking. Suppose it were wished to sew together, 





DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 357 

quite close to the edge, two pieces of leather, one placed upon the 
other, and that a straight awl is used ; the hole that it will make 
will constantly push out the leather towards the edge and give it a 
convex form, and when the sewing is done the edge will exhibit a 
row of festoons, which it will be necessary to rub down by means 
of a knife, in order to give a regular edge to the pieces, but which, 
fay this means, will lose much of its strength. Now, if, on the 
contrary, a crooked awl is used, and pushed in properly, it may 
be brought very near the edge, by making it describe the arc of a 
circle, whose convexity is opposite to the edge. By this simple 
means the festooned appearance of the edge produced by the 
straight awl will not be formed, and of course the strength of the 
leather will be preserved undiminished, and the sewing itself will 
be strong. Unfortunately, the name of the person who conceived 
the idea oihending the awl is lost. 



Illustration of the Ignorance of Foreigners respecting American 
Inventions. 

The ignorance of foreigners in relation to our country and its 
improvements in the mechanic arts, is well illustrated in the fol- 
lowing conversation related by Allen, in his Travels, as having 
passed between himself and a Flemish gentleman, in a stage 
coach in Holland. In speaking of steam, he says : 

" Our artisan was also eloquent in his eulogium upon steam 
navigation, having for the first time in his life made the passage 
from Rotterdam to Antwerp in the steam-packet. In a few years, 
he observed, steamboats would be in use in all parts of the country, 
and even in the United States of America we might not be long 
without them. His surprise was great, when informed that steam- 
boats were in general use on most of the large rivers of the Union, 
where they were first successfully put into operation, some twenty 
years ago. 

" The subject of mechanical inventions having been thus intro- 
duced, I described to him several of the curiously constructed 
machines invented by Americans. He continued to listen to an 
account of the nail machine, which cuts and heads nails from a 
flat bar of iron as fast as a man can count them. The machine for 
making weavers^ reeds or slaies seemed to strike attention as a won- 
derful invention, whereby the mechanism is made to draw in the 
flattened wire from a reel, to insert it between the side pieces, to cut 
it off" at the proper length, and finally, to bind each dent firmly in 
its place with tarred twine, accomplishing the whole operation 

16 



358 ANECDOTES, 

without the assistance of an attendant, in a more perfect manner 
than can be performed by the most skilful hand. He had never 
before heard of these machines : although possessed of a good share 
of intelligence, yet the complicated operations of the mechanism 
for accomplishing processes which he supposed could only be 
brought about by manual dexterity, appeared to him almost in- 
credible. But when I described to him Blanchar(Vs Lathe, in 
which gun-stocks and shoe-lasts, with all their irregularity of out- 
line, are turned exactly to a pattern, his confidence in my veracity 
seemed evidently wavering, and on giving him a description of 
Whittemore's celebrated card machine, which draws off the wire 
from the reel, — cuts it into pieces of the proper length for teeth, — 
bends it into the form of a staple, — punctures the holes in the 
leather with a needle, — inserts the staples into these punctured 
holes in the leather, — and finally, crooks the teeth into the required 
form, completing of itself all those operations with regularity with- 
out the assistance of a human hand to direct it, the credulity of my 
travelling companion would extend no farther. He manifested 
doubts of all that I had been describing to him, accompanied by 
feelings of irritation at what he appeared to consider an attempt to 
impose upon him marvellous travellers^ stories. 

" Giving vent to an emphatic humph ! — he petulantly threw him- 
self back into the corner of the dihgence, and would hold no far- 
ther conversation during the remainder of our ride, on the subjeet 
of mechanical improvements made in Flemish manufactures." 



Singular Origin of the Invention of Frame-work Knitting. 

The stocking frame, to any one who attentively considers its 
complex operations, and the elegant sleight with which it forms its 
successive rows of loops or stitches, will appear to be the most ex- 
traordinary single feat, the most remarkable stride, ever made in 
mechanical invention. 

In the fetocKmg Weavers^ Hall, in Red Cross street London, 
there is a portrait of a man, painted in the act of pointing to an iron 
stocking frame, and addressing a woman, who is knitting with 
needles by hand. The picture bears the following quaint inscrip- 
tion : — " In the year 1589, the ingenious WiUiam Lee, A. M., of 
St. John's College, Cambridge, devised this profitable art for stock- 
ings, (but being despised went to France,) yet of iron to himself, 
but to us, and to others, of gold ; in memory of whom this is here 
painted." 

This machine was constructed somewhere about the year 1600. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 359 

It was only about thirty years prior to its construction, that the art 
of knitting stockings, by wires worked by the fingers, had been 
introduced into England from Spain. 

This Mr. Lee, it is said, paid his addresses to a young woman 
in his neighborhood, to whom, from some cause, his attentions were 
not agreeable ; or, as with more probability it has been conjectured, 
she affected to treat him with neghgence to ascertain her power 
over his affections. Whenever he paid his visits she always took 
care to be busily employed m knitting, and would pay no attention 
to his addresses ; this conduct she pursued for so long a period, 
that the lover became disgusted, and he vowed to devote his leisure, 
instead of dancing attendance on a capricious woman, who treated 
his attention with cold neglect, in devising an invention that would 
effectually supersede her favorite employment of knitting. So se- 
dulous was Mr. Lee in his new occupation, that he neglected every 
thing to accomplish this new object of his attentions ; even his 
sacerdotal duties were neglected. In vain did his sweetheart en- 
deavor to reclaim him ; she found too late that she had carried her 
humor to far. All interests, all avocations, all affections were 
absorbed in his new pursuit, from which he imagined he should 
realize an immense fortune. His curacy was abandoned as be- 
neath the notice of a person who had formed in his imagination 
such gigantic prospects. 

The old stocking makers were fond of dilating in their cups 
and in their conversation on the difficulties he encountered. He 
watched his mistress with the greatest attention while knitting, and 
he observed that she made the web loop by loop, but the round 
shape which she gave to the stocking from the four needles, greatly 
embarrassed him in his notions of destroying her trade. Pondering 
in his mind the difficulties of his task, on one of his visits he found 
her knitting the heel of a stocking, and using only two needles ; one 
was employed in holding the loops, while another was engaged in 
forming a new series. The thought struck him instantly that he 
could make a fiat web, and then by joining the selvages with the 
needle, make it round. At the end of three years' excessive study 
and toil, Mr. Lee was enabled to make a course upon a frame ; but 
here new difficulties presented themselves ; he wrought with great 
facility the top, the narrowings, and the small of the leg, but the 
formation of the heel and foot embarrassed the ingenious mechanic, 
who had surmounted such seeming insuperable difficulties. After 
having to unreave a great number of abortive attempts, persever- 
ance at length crowned his efforts, the clergyman attained the 
height of his wishes, and became the first frame-work knitter. 

He brought the machine to such perfection that even to the pre- 
2.5* 



360 ANECDOTES, 

sent time it has received no essential improvements. Having 
taught its use to his brother and the rest of his relations, he estab- 
lished his frame at Culverton, near Nottingham, as a formidable 
competitor of female handiwork, teaching his mistress, by the in- 
significance to which he reduced the implements of her pride, that 
the love of a man of genius was not to be slighted with impunity. 

After practising this business for five years, he became aware 
of its importance in a national point of view, and brought his inven- 
tion to London, to seek protection and encouragement from the 
court, by whom his fabrics were much admired. The period of 
his visit was not propitious. Elizabeth, the patroness of whatever 
ministei'ed to her vanity as a woman, and her state as a princess, 
was in the last stage of her decline. Her successor was too deeply 
engrossed with political intrigues for securing the stability of his 
throne, to be able to afford any leisure to cherish an infant manu- 
facture. Nay, though Lee and his brother made a pair of stock- 
ings in the presence of the king, it is said he viewed their frame 
rather as a dangerous innovation, likely to deprive the poor of labor 
and bread, rather than as a means of multiplying the resources of 
national industry and giving employment to many thousand people. 

The encouragement which the nai-row-minded James refused 
was offered by the French king Henry IV., and his sagacious min- 
ister Sully. They invited Lee to come to France with his admi- 
rable machines. Thither he accordingly repaired, and settled at 
Rouen, and gave an impulse to manufactures, which is even felt 
to the present day in that department. After Henry had fallen a 
victim to domestic treachery, Lee, envied by the natives whose 
genius he had eclipsed, was pi'oscribed as a protestant, and obliged 
to seek concealment from the bloody bigots in Paris, where he 
ended his days in secret grief and disappointment. Some of his 
workmen made their escape into England, where, under his in- 
genious apprentice Aston, they mounted the stocking frame, and 
thus restored to its native country an invention which had well 
nigh been lost to it. 



Ancient and Modern Labor. 
The great Pyramid of Egypt cost the labor of one hundred thousand 
men for twenty years, exclusive of those who prepared and collected 
the materials. The steam engines of England, alone, worked by 
thirty-six thousand men, would raise the same quantity of materials 
to the same height in eighteen hours, which reckoning ten hours 
to the day, and three hundred working days to the year, would 
enable the moderns to erect over 3,000 pyramids in the same time. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 861 

The Slide of Alpnach. 

Amongst the forests which flank many of the lofty mountains 
t.of Switzerland, some of the finest timber is found in positions al- 
most inaccessible. The expense of roads, even if it were possible 
to make them in such situations, would prevent the inhabitants 
from deriving any advantages from these almost inexhaustible sup. 
plies. Placed by nature at a considerable elevation above the spot 
on which they are required, they are precisely in fit circumstances 
for the application of machinery ; and the inhabitants constantly 
avail themselves of it, to enable the force of gravity to relieve them 
from some portion of their labor. The inclined planes which they 
have established in various forests, by which the timber has been 
sent down to the water-courses, must have excited the admii-ation 
of every traveller ; and these shdes, in addition to the merit of 
simphcity, have that of economy, as their construction requires 
scarcely any thing beyond the material which grows upon the spot. 
Of all these specimens of carpentry, the Slide of Alpnach was by 
far the most considerable, both from its great length, and from the 
almost inaccessible position from which it descended. The fol- 
lowing is the description of that work given in Gilbert's An- 
nalen, 1819, and translated in the second volume of Brewster's 
Journal : — 

For many centuries, the rugged flanks and the deep gorges of 
Mount Pilatus were covered with impenetrable forests. Lofty pre- 
cipices encircled them on all sides. Even the daring hunters were 
scarcely able to reach them ; and the inhabitants of the valley had 
never conceived the idea of disturbing them with the axe. These 
immense forests were therefore permitted to grow and to perish, 
without being of the least utihty to man, till a foreigner, conduct- 
ed into their wild recesses in the pursuit of the chamois, was struck 
with wonder at the sight, and directed the attention of several Swiss 
gentlemen to the extent and superiority of the timber. The most 
intelligent and skilful individuals, however, considered it quite im- 
practicable to avail themselves of such inaccessible stores. It was 
not till November, 1816, that M. Rupp, and three Swiss gentlemen, 
entertaining more sanguine hopes, drew up a plan of a slide, found- 
ed on trigonometrical measurements. Having purchased a certain 
extent of the forests from the commune of Alpnach for six thou- 
sand crowns, they began the construction of the slide, and comple- 
ted it in the spring of 1818. 

The Slide of Alpnach is formed entirely of about 25,000 large 
pine trees, deprived of their bark, and united together in a very 
ingenious manner, without the aid of iron. It occupied about one 



^3 ANECDOTES, 

hundred and sixty workmen during eighteen months, and cost nearly 
one hundred thousand francs, or JE4250. It is about three leagues, 
or forty-four thousand English feet long, and terminates in the 
Lake of Lucerne. It has the form of a trough, about six feet 
broad, and from three to six feet deep. Its bottom is formed of 
three trees, the middle one of which has a groove cut out in the 
direction of its length, for receiving small rills of water, which are 
conducted into it from various places, for the purpose of diminish- 
ing the friction. The whole of the slide is sustained by about two 
thousand supports ; and in many places it is attached, in a very 
ingenious manner, to the rugged precipices of granite. 

The direction of the slide is sometimes straight, and sometimes 
zig-zag, with an inchnation of from 10° to 18°. It is often car- 
ried along the sides of hills, and the flanks of precipitous rocks, 
and sometimes passes over their summits. Occasionally it goes 
under ground, and at other times it is conducted over the deep gor- 
ges by scaffoldings one hundred and twenty feet in height. 

The boldness which characterizes this work, the sagacity dis- 
played in all its arrangements, and the skill of the engineer, have 
excited the wonder of all who have seen it. Before any step could 
be taken in its erection, it was necessary to cut several thousand 
trees, to obtain a passage through the impenetrable thickets ; and, 
as the workmen advanced, men were posted at certain distances, 
in order to point out the road for their return, and to discover, in 
the gorges, the places where the piles of wood had been estab- 
lished. M. Rupp was himself obliged, more than once, to be sus- 
pended by cords, in order to descend precipices many hundred feet 
high ; and, in the first months of the undertaking, he was attacked 
with a violent fever, which deprived him of the power of superin- 
tending his workmen. Nothing, however, could diminish his in- 
vincible perseverance. He was carried every day to the mountain 
in a barrow, to direct the labors of the workmen, which was abso- 
lutely necessary, as he had scarcely two good carpenters among 
them all ; the rest having been hired by accident, without any of 
the knowledge which such an undertaking required. M. Rupp had 
also to contend against the prejudices of the peasantry. He was 
supposed to have communion with the devil. He was charged with 
heresy, and every obstacle was thrown in the way of an enterprise 
which they regarded as absurd and impracticable. 

All these difficulties, however, were surmounted, and he had at 
last the satisfaction of observing the trees descend from the moun- 
tain with the rapidity of lightning. The larger pines, which were 
about a hundred feet long, and ten inches thick ut their smaller ex- 
tremity, ran through the space oi three leagues, or nearly nine miles , 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 363 

in two minutes and a half, and during their descent, they appeared 
to be only a few feet in length. The arrangements for this part 
of the operation were extremely simple. From the lower end of 
the sHde to the upper end, where the trees were introduced, work- 
men were posted at regular distances, and as soon as every thing 
was ready, the workman at the lower end of the slide cried out to 
the one above him, ' Lachez,'' (let go.) The cry was repeated from 
one to another, and reached the top of the slide in three minutes. 
The workman at the top of the slide then cried out to the one be- 
low him, ^11 vient,'' (it comes,) and the tree was instantly launched 
down the slide, preceded by the cry which was repeated from post 
to post. As soon as the tree had reached the bottom, and plunged 
into the lake, the cry of Lachez was repeated as before, and a new 
tree was launched in a similar manner. By these means a tree 
descended every five or six minutes, provided no accident happened 
to the shde, which sometimes took place, but which was instantly 
repaired when it did. 

In order to show the enormous force which the trees acquired 
from the great velocity of their descent, M. Rupp made arrange- 
ments for causing some of the trees to spring from the slide. They 
peneti'ated by their thickest extremities no less than from eighteen 
to twenty-four feet into the earth ; and one of the trees having by 
accident struck against the other, it instantly cleft it through its 
whole length, as if it had been struck by lightning. 

After the trees had descended the slide, they were collected into 
rafts upon the lake, and conducted to Lucerne. From thence they 
descended the Reuss, then the Aar to near Brugg, afterwards to 
Waldshut by the Rhine, then to Basle, and even to the sea when it 
was necessary. 

In order that none of the small wood might be lost, M. Rupp 
estabhshed in the forest large manufactories of charcoal. He 
erected magazines for preserving it when manufactured, and had 
made arrangements for the construction of barrels, for the purpose 
of cariying it to the market. In winter, when the slide was cov- 
ered with snow, the barrels were made to descend on a kind of 
sledge. The wood which was not fit for being carbonized, was 
heaped up and burnt, and the ashes packed up and carried away, 
during the winter. 

A few days before the author of the preceding account visited 
the sUde, an inspector of the navy had come for the purpose of ex. 
amining the quality of the timber. He declared that he had never 
seen any timber that was so strong, so fine, and of such a size ; 
and he concluded an advantageous bargain for one thousand trees. 

Such is a brief account of a work undertaken and executed by 



364 ANECDOTES, 

a single individual, and which has excited a very high degree of 
interest in every part of Europe. We regret to add, that this mag- 
nificent structure no longer exists, and that scarcely a trace of it is to 
be seen upon the flanks of Mount Pilatus. Political circumstances 
having taken away the principal source of the demand for timber, 
and no other market having been found, the operation of cutting 
and transporting the trees necessarily ceased. 

Professor Playfair, who visited this singular slide, states, that 
six minutes was the usual time occupied in the descent of a tree, 
but that in wet weather it reached the lake in three minutes. 



,, American Road-making. 

" Road-making* is a branch of engineering which has been 
very httle cultivated in America ; and it was not until the intro- 
duction of railways that the Americans entertained the idea of 
transporting heavy goods by any other means than those afforded 
by canals and slackwater navigation. Their objection to paved 
or Macadamized roads such as are used in Europe, is founded on 
the prejudicial effects exerted upon works of that description by 
the severe and protracted winters by which the country is visited, 
and also the difficulty and expense of obtaining materials suitable 
for their construction, and for keeping them in a state of proper 
repair. Stone fitted for the purposes of road-making is by no 
means plentiful in America ; and as the number of workmen is 
small in proportion to the quantity of work which is generally 
going forward in the country, manual labor is very expensive. 
Under these circumstances, it is evident that roads would have 
been a very costly means of communication, and as they are not 
suitable for the transport of heavy goods, the Americans, in com- 
mencing their internal improvements, directed their whole atten- 
tion to the construction of canals, as being much better adapted to 
supply their wants. 

" The roads throughout the United States and Canada are, from 
these causes, not very numerous, and most of those by which i 
travelled were in so neglected and wretched a condition as hardly 
to deserve the name of highways, being quite unfit for any vehicle 
but an American stage, and any pilot but an American driver. In 
many parts of the country, the operation of cutting a track through 
the forests of a sufficient width to allow vehicles to pass each other, 
is all that has been done towards the formation of a road. The 

* Stevenson's Engineering in North America. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 366 

roots of the felled trees are often not removed ; and in marshes, 
where the ground is wet and soft, the trees themselves are cut in 
lengths of about ten or twelve feet, and laid close to each other 
across the road, to prevent vehicles from sinking, forming what is 
called in America a ' Corduroy road,'' over which the coach ad. 
vances by a series of leaps and starts, particularly trying to those 
accustomed to the comforts of European travelling. 

" On the road leading from Pittsburg on the Oliio to the town 
of Erie on the lake of that name, I saw all the varieties of forest 
road-making in great perfection. Sometimes our way lay for 
miles through extensive marshes, which we crossed by corduroy 
roads ; at others the coach stuck fast in mud, from which it could 
be extricated only by the combined efforts of the coachman and 
passengers ; and at one place we travelled for upwards of a quar- 
ter of a mile through a forest flooded with water, which stood to 
the height of several feet on many of the trees, and occasionally 
covered the naves of the coach-wheels. The distance of the route 
from Pittsburg to Erie is 128 miles, which was accomplished in 
forty-six hours, being at the very slow rate of about two miles and 
three quarters an hour, although the conveyance by which I trav- 
elled carried the mail, and stopped only for breakfast, dinner, and 
tea, but there was considerable delay caused by the coach being 
once upset and several times ' mired.' 

" The best roads in the United States are those of New Eng- 
land, where, in the year 1796, the first American turnpike act was 
granted. These roads are made of gravel ; a material which, by 
the way, is much used for road-making in Ireland. The surface 
of the New England roads is very smooth ; but as no attention 
has been paid to forming or draining them, it is only for a few 
months during summer that they possess any superiority, or are, 
in fact, at all tolerable. In Virginia and all the states lying to the 
south, as well as throughout the whole country to the westward of 
the Alleghany mountains, the roads, I believe, are, generally speak- 
ing, of the same description as the one already mentioned between 
Pittsburg and Erie, affording very little comfort or facility to those 
who have the misfortune to be obliged to travel upon them. 

" But on the construction of one or two lines of road, the Ameri- 
cans have bestowed a little more attention. The most remarkable 
of them is that called the ' National Road,' stretching across the 
country from Baltimore to the state of IlHnois, a distance of no less 
than seven hundred miles, an arduous and extensive work, which 
was constructed at the expense of the government of the United 
States. The narrow tract of land from which it was necessary 
to remove the timber and brushwood for the passage of the road, 

16 



S66 ANECDOTES, 

measures eighty feet in breadth ; but the breadth of the road itself 
is only thirty feet. The line of the ' National Road ' commences 
at Baltimore, passes through part of the state of Maryland, and 
entering that of Pennsylvania, crosses the range of the Alleghany 
mountains, after which it passes through the states of Virginia, 
Ohio, and Indiana, to Illinois. It is in contemplation to produce 
this line of road to the Mississippi at St. Louis, where, the river 
being crossed by a ferry-boat stationed at that place, the road is 
ultimately to be extended into the state of Missom-i, which lies to 
the west of the Mississippi. 

" The ' Macadamized road,^ as it is called, leading from Albany 
to Troy, is another line which has been formed at some cost, and 
with some degree of care. This I'oad, as its name implies, is 
constructed with stone broken, according to Macadam's principle. 
It is six miles in length, and has been formed of a sufficient 
breadth to allow three carriages to stand abreast on it at once. It 
belongs to an incorporated company, who are said to have ex- 
pended about £20,000 in constructing and upholding it. 

" Some interesting experiments have lately been set on foot at 
New York, for the purpose of obtaining a permanent and durable 
city road, for streets over which there is a great thoroughfare, 
l^'he place chosen for the trial was the Broadway, in which the 
traffic is constant and extensive. 

" The specimen of road-making first put to the test was a spe- 
cies of causewaying or pitching ; but the materials employed are 
round water-worn stones, of small size ; and their only recom- 
mendation for such a work appears to be their great abundance in 
the neighborhood of the town. The most of the streets in New 
York, and indeed in all the Amei"ican towns, are paved with stones 
of this description ; but, owing to their small size and round form, 
they easily yield to the pressure of carriages passing over them, 
and produce the large ruts and holes for which American thorough, 
fares are famed. To form a smooth and durable pavement, the 
pitching-stones should have a considerable depth, and their oppo- 
site sides ought to be as nearly parallel as possible, or, in other 
words, the stones should have very little taper. The footpaths in 
most of the towns are paved with bricks set on edge, and bedded 
in sand, similar to the ' clinkers,' or small hard-burned bricks so 
generally used for road-making in Holland. 

" The second specimen was formed with broken stones, but the 
materials, owing chiefly, no doubt, to the high rate of wages, ai-e 
not broken sufficiently small to entitle it to the name of a ' Mac- 
adamized road.' It is, however, a wonderful improvement on the 
ordinary pitched pavement of the country, and the only objections 




DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 307 

to its general introduction are the prejudicial effects produced on 
it by the very intense frost with which the country is visited, and 
the expense of keeping it in repair. 

" The third specimen is rather of 
an original description. It consists 
of a species of tesselated pavement, 
formed of hexagonal billets of pine 
wood measuring six inches on each 
side, and twelve inches in depth, 
arranged as shown in the annexed 
cut, in which the larger diagram is a view of part of the surface 
of the pavement, and the smaller, one of the biUets of wood of 
which it is composed, shown on a larger scale. From the manner 
in which the timber is arranged, the pressure falls on it parallel to 
the direction in which its fibres he, so that the tendency to wear is 
veiy smaU. The blocks are coated with pitch or tar, and are set 
in sand, forming a smooth surface for carriages, which pass easily 
and noiselessly over it. There can be no doubt of the suitableness 
of wood for forming a roadway ; and such an improvement is cer- 
tainly much wanted in all American towns, and in none of them 
more than in New York. Some, however, have expressed a fear 
that great difiiculty would be experienced in keeping pavements 
constructed in this manner in a clean state, and that during damp 
weather a vapor might arise from the timber, which, if it were 
brought into general use, would prove hurtful to the salubrity of 
large towns. 

" In the northern parts of Germany and also in Russia, wooden 
pavements are a good deal used. My friend Dr. D. B. Reid in- 
forms me, that at St. Petersburg a wooden causeway has been tried 
Avith considerable success. The billets of wood are hexagonal, and 
are arranged in the manner represented in the diagram of the 
American pavement. At first they were simply imbedded in the 
ground, but a great improvement has been introduced by placing 
them on a flooring of planks laid horizontally, so as to prevent 
them from sinking unequally. This has not, so far as I know, 
been done in America." 



Archimedes. 

This celebrated philosopher of antiquity was a native of Syra- 
cuse in Sicily, and is supposed to have been born about two hun- 
dred and eighty years before the commencement of the Christian 



368 ANECDOTES, 

In proof of Archimedes' knowledge of the doctrines of specific 
gravities, a singular fact is related in Vitruvius. Hiero, king of 
Syracuse, suspecting that in making a golden crown which he had 
ordered, the workmen had stolen part of the gold, and substituted 
in its stead an equal weight of silver, he apphed to Archimedes, 
entreating him to exercise his ingenuity in detecting the fraud. 
Contemplating the subject one day as he was in the bath, it occur- 
red to him that he displaced a quantity of water equal to the bulk 
of his own body. Quitting the bath with that eager and impetu- 
ous delight which a new discovery naturally excites in an inquisitive 
mind, he ran naked into the street, crying, Eureka! Eureka! [I 
have found it out ! I have found it out!] Procuring a mass of 
gold, and another of silver, each of equal weight with the crown, 
he observed the quantity of fluid which each displaced, succes- 
sively, upon being inserted in the same vessel full of water ; he 
then observed how much water was displaced by the crown ; and, 
upon comparing this quantity with each of the former, soon learn- 
ed the proportions of silver and gold in the crown 

In mechanics and optics the inventive powers of Archimedes 
were astonishing. He said, with apparent, but only apparent, ex- 
travagance, " Give me a place to stand upon, and I will move the 
earth ;" for he perfectly understood the doctrine of the lever, and 
well knew, that, theoretically, the greatest weight may be moved 
by the smallest power. To show Hiero the wonderful eifeCt of 
mechanic powers, he is said, by the help of ropes and pulleys, to 
have drawn towards him, with perfect ease, a galley which lay on 
shore, manned and loaded. But the grand proofs of his skill were 
given during the siege of Syracuse by Marcellus. Whether the 
vessels of the besiegers approached near the walls of the city, or 
kept at a considerable distance, Archimedes found means to annoy 
them. When they ventured closely under the rampart raised on 
the side towards the sea, he, by means of long and vast beams, 
probably hung in the form of a lever, struck with prodigious force 
upon the galleys, and sunk them : or by means of grappling hooks 
at the remote extremity of other levers, he caught up the vessels 
into the air, and dashed them to pieces against the walls or the 
projecting rocks. When the enemy kept at a greater distance, 
Archimedes made use of machines, by which he threw from be- 
hind the walls stones in vast masses, or great numbers, which shat- 
tered and demolished the ships or the machines employed in the 
siege. This mathematical Briareus, as Marcellus jestingly called 
him, employed his hundred arms with astonishing effect. His me- 
chanical genius was the informing soul of the besieged city ; and 
his powerful weapons struck the astonished Romans with terror. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 369 

One, in particular, consisting of a mirror, by which he concentra- 
ted the rays of the sun upon the besieging vessels and set them on 
fire, must have produced an extraordinary impression upon those 
who suffered from it, seeing that it was of so wonderful a charac- 
ter as to be thought a fiction by subsequent ages, until its reality 
was proved by the repetiton of the experiment. Buffbn contrived 
and made a burning-glass, composed of about four hundred glass 
planes, each six inches square, so placed as to form a concave 
mirror, capable of melting silver at the distance of fifty feet, and 
lead and tin at the distance of one hundred and twenty feet, and of 
setting fire to wood at the distance of two hundred feet ; and the 
story of Archimedes' instrument for burning ships at a great dis- 
tance was no longer ridiculed. 

Eminent as Archimedes was for his skill and invention in me- 
chanics, his chief excellence, perhaps, lay in the rare talent which 
he possessed of investigating abstract truths, and in inventing con- 
clusive demonstrations in the higher branches of pure geometry. 
If we are to credit the representation of Plutarch, he looked upon 
mechanic inventions as far inferior in value to those intellectual 
speculations which terminate in simple truth, and carry with them 
irresistible conviction. Of his success in these lucubrations, the 
world is still in possession of admirable proofs in the geometrical 
treatises which he left behind him. Of the unremitting ardor with 
which he devoted himself to mathematical studies, and the deep 
attention with which he pursued them, his memoirs afford striking 
and interesting examples. It is related of him, that he was often 
so totally absorbed in mathematical speculations, as to neglect his 
meals and the care of his person. At the bath he would frequent- 
ly draw geometrical figures in the ashes, or, when according to 
the custom he was anointed, upon his own body. He was so much 
delighted with the discovery of the ratio between the sphere and 
the containing cyhnder, that, passing over all his mechanic inven- 
tions, as a memorial of this discovery, he requested his friends to 
place upon his tomb a cylinder, containing a sphere, with an in- 
scription expressing the proportion which the containing soHd bears 
to the cdntained. 

No sincere admirer of scientific merit will read without painful 
regret, that when Syracuse, after all the defence which philosophy 
had afforded it, was taken by storm, and given up to the sword, 
notwithstanding the liberal exception which Marcellus had made 
in favor of Archimedes, by giving orders that his house and his per. 
son should be held sacred, at a moment when this great man was 
so intent upon some mathematical speculation as not to perceive 
that the city was taken, and even when, according to Cicero, he 



370 ANECDOTES, 

was actually drawing a geometrical figure upon the sand, an igno 
rant barbarian, in the person of a Roman soldier, without allowing 
him the satisfaction of completing the solution of his problem, ran 
him through the body. This event, so disgraceful to the Roman 
character and to human nature, happened two hundred and twelve 
years before Christ. It was a poor compensation for the insult 
offered by this action to science in the person of one of her most 
favored sons, that Marcellus, in the midst of his triumphal laurels, 
lamented the fate of Archimedes, and, taking upon himself the 
charge of his funeral, protected and honored his relations. The 
disgrace was in some measure cancelled, when Cicero, a hundred 
and forty years afterwards, paid homage to his forgotten tomb. 
" During my qusestorship," says this illustrious Roman, '' I dili- 
gently sought to discover the sepulchre of Archimedes yhich the 
Syracusans had totally neglected, and suffered to be grown over 
with thorns and briers. Recollecting some verses, said to be in- 
scribed upon the tomb, which mentioned that on the top was placed 
a sphere with a cylinder, I looked round me upon every object at 
the Agragentine Gate, the common receptacle of the dead. At 
last I observed a little column which just rose above the thorns, 
upon which was placed the figure of a sphere and cylinder. This, 
said I to the Syracusan nobles who w^re with me, this must, I think, 
be what I am seeking. Several persons were immediately employed 
to clear away the weeds and lay open the spot. As soon as a pas- 
sage was opened, we drew near, and found on the opposite base the 
inscription, with nearly half the latter part of the verses worn 
away. Thus would this most famous, and formerly most learned 
city of Greece, have remained a stranger to the tomb of one of its 
most ingenious citizens, had it not been discovered by a man of 
Arpinum." 



The Inventor of the Iron Plough. 

Since the beginning of the present century, the wooden plough 
has very generally been supplanted in Scotland, and in a consider- 
able degree in England, America, and other parts of the world, by 
a similar implement formed of iron. This change, indeed, is irre- 
sistible, as not only is the latter implement more durable, but, being 
lighter, more convenient, and less liable to get out of order, it pro- 
duces a great saving in time and labor. 

We have been informed that the author of this great and sudden 
improvement upon a machine which may be said to have continu- 
ed unchanged for thousands of years, was William Allan, of Stone- 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 371 

house, in Lanarkshire, Scotland, a man of considerable activity of 
mind, and inventive genius, but in all other respects a simple and 
vmambitious peasant. He vv^as the son of a country farrier and 
smith, and brought up as a farmer. Falling, at his father''s death, 
into the possession of his tools, he was led, by a natural bent towards 
the mechanical arts, to attempt various improvements upon the 
rustic implements which he used. In the winter of 1803-4, he 
first conceived the daring idea of altering the material of the plough 
to iron, and with his own hands constructed one of that metal, 
which he thenceforward used on his own farm. " William Allan's 
Iron Plough," instantly acquired local fame, and people came from 
all parts of the district to see it. Its celebrity continued to extend, 
until enlightened persons at a distance heard of it, and were also 
attracted in considerable numbers to witness its operations. Mr. 
Campbell of Shawfield was the first patron of agricultural improve, 
ment who ventured to have one made. He thought it would be a 
suitable implement for his Highland farms, and requested Allan to 
make one for him, with the view of having others if the first should 
give satisfaction. But Allan, though a constant dabbler in iron 
work, could not allow himself to think so well of his abilities in 
that fine, as to undertake the construction of a plough for so great 
a man as Mr. Campbell ; and he recommended that Mr. Gray, a 
respectable blacksmith at the neighboring village of Uddingston, 
should be employed to execute the job. 

Gray accordingly made an iron plough for Mr. Campbell, under 
the directions of the inventor ; and the article being found satis- 
factory, he was immediately employed to make others. Ere long, 
orders came so fast upon him for iron ploughs, that, not having suf. 
ficient capital for his increased business, he was obliged to take in 
a moneyed partner. For some time the manufacture of iron ploughs 
was limited to this' little village ; but at length other artificers 
throughout the kingdom ventured to make them too, and, in time, 
they were found universally difiused. As might be expected, sev- 
eral improvements were made upon the first comparatively rude 
attempt of William Allan ; but the principle in all cases remained 
unaltered. In the mean time, while so many were profiting by 
the manufacture of the article, and while the whole nation was a 
gainer by its economy and durability, the simple inventor remain- 
ed in his obscurity, contented with the reflection that he had done 
his country some service. 



372 ANECDOTES, 

Cotton manufacture of India. 

The cotton manufacture of India is not carried on in a few 
large towns, or in one or two districts ; it is universal. The 
growth of cotton is nearly as general as that of food ; everywhere 
the women spend their time in spinning, and almost every village 
contains its weavers, who supply the inhabitants with the scanty 
-clothing they require. Being a domestic manufacture, and carried 
on with the rudest and cheapest apparatus, it requires neither 
capital or mills, nor an assemblage of various trades. The cotton 
is separated from the seeds by a small rude hand-mill or gin, which 
is turned by a woman. This mill consists of two rollers of teak- 
wood fluted lengthwise, with five or six grooves, and revolving 
nearly in contact. The upper roller is turned by a handle, and 
the lower is carried along with it by means of a perpetual screw 
at the axis. The cotton is put in at one side, and drawn through 
by the revolving rollers ; the seeds being too large to pass through 
the opening, are torn off and fall down on the opposite side from 
the cotton. The next operation is that of bowing the cotton, to 
clear it from knots and dirt. A large bow, made elastic by a 
complication of strings, is used ; this being put in contact with a 
heap of cotton, the workman strikes the string with a heavy wooden 
mallet, and its vibrations open the knots of the cotton, shake from 
it the dirt, and raise it to a downy fleece. The hand-mill and bow 
have been used immemorially throughout all the countries of Asia. 
The cotton being thus prepared, without any carding, it is spun by 
the women ; the coarse yarn is spun on a heavy one-thread wheel 
of the rudest carpentry, made of teak-wood. 




INDIAN SFINNINO-WEBBL. 



The finer yarn is spun with a metallic spindle, sometimes with 
and sometimes without a distaff"; a bit of clay is attached as a 




HINDOOS WEAVING. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 375 

weight to one end of the spindle, which is turned round with the 
left hand while the cotton is supplied with the right ; the thread 
is wound up on a small piece of wood. The spinster keeps her 
fingers dry by the use of a chalky powder. In this simple way 
the Indian women, whose sense of touch is most acute and deli- 
cate, produce yarns which are finer and far more tenacious thau 
any of the machine spun yarns of Europe. 

The yarn having been reeled and warped in the simplest pos- 
sible manner, is given to the weaver, whose loom is as rude an 
apparatus as can be imagined ; consisting merely of two bamboo 
rollers for the warp and web, and a pair of gear. The shuttle 
performs the double office of shuttle and batten, and for this pur- 
pose is made like a large netting needle, and of a length somewhat 
exceeding the breadth of the piece. This apparatus the weaver 
carries to a tree, under which he digs a hole large enough to con- 
tain his legs and the lower part of his gear. He then stretches 
his warp by fastening the bamboo rollers at a due distance from 
each other on the turf by wooden pins ; the balances of the gear 
he fastens to some convenient branch of the tree over his head ; 
two loops underneath the gear, into which he inserts his great toes, 
serve instead of treadles, and his long shuttle, which also performs 
the office of batten, draws the weft through the warp, and after- 
wards strikes it up close to the web. There is not so much as an 
expedient for rolUng up the warp ; it is stretched out at the fiall 
length of the web, which makes the house of the weaver insuffi- 
cient to contain him. He is therefore obliged to work continually 
in the open air, and every return of inclement weather interrupts 
him. 

It cannot but seem astonishing, that in a department of industry 
where the raw material is so grossly neglected, the machinery so 
rude, and the division of labor so little, that the results should be 
fabrics of the most exquisite delicacy and beauty, unrivalled by 
the products of other nations, even those best skilled in the me- 
chanic arts. This anomaly is explained by the remarkably fine 
sense of touch possessed by that effeminate people, their patience 
and gentleness, and by the hereditary continuance of a particular 
species of manufacture in families through many generations, 
which leads to the training of children from their very infancy in 
the processes of the art. The rigid, clumsy fingers of an European 
would scarcely be able to make a piece of canvass with the instru- 
ments which are all that an Indian employs in making a piece of 
cambric (muslin.) It is farther remarkable, that every distinct 
kind of cloth is the production of a particular district, in which the 
fabric has been transmitted, perhaps for centuries, from father to 



376 ANECDOTES, 

son. The unequalled manual skill of the Indian weaver may be 
thus explained : — It is a sedentary occupation, and thus in har- 
mony with his predominant inclination ; it requires patience, of 
which he has an inexhaustible fund ; it requires little bodily exer- 
tion, of which he is always exceedingly sparing ; and the finer 
the production, the more slender the force he is called upon to 
apply. But this is not all : the weak and delicate frame of the 
Hindoo is accompanied with an acuteness of external sense, par- 
ticularly of touch, which is altogether unrivalled, and the flexibility 
of his fingers is equally remarkable. The hand of the Hindoo, 
therefore, constitutes an organ adapted to the finest operations of 
the loom, in a degree which is almost, or altogether, peculiar to 
himself. 

It is, then, to a physical organization in the natives, admirably 
suited to the processes of spimiing and weaving ; to the possession 
of the raw material in the greatest abundance ; to the possession, 
also, of the most brilliant dyes for staining and printing the cloth ; 
to a climate that renders the colors lively and durable ; and to the 
hereditary practice by particular castes, classes, and families, both 
of the manual and chemical processes required in the manufac- 
ture ; it is to these causes, with very little aid from science, and 
in an almost barbarous state of the mechanical arts, that India 
owes her long supremacy in the manufacture of cotton. 

One fact strikingly manifests the national character of this 
people. It is said that all the Indian weavers, who weave for 
common sale, make the woof of one end of the cloth coarser than 
that of the other, and attempt to sell to the unwary hy the fine end, 
although almost every one who deals with them is perfectly aware 
of the circumstance ; and it is, therefore, a rare chance if a single 
opportunity occurs to the weaver to gain by this means during the 
whole course of his life ! 



Description of the Bridge at the Niagara Falls. 

The bridge across the rapids of the river Niagara is placed 
only two or three hundred yards from the edge of the great falls. 
It extends from the American bank of the river to Goat Island, 
which separates what is called the " American" from the " British 
fall." The superstructure of the bridge is formed of timber. It 
is 396 feet in length, and is supported on six piers, formed partly 
of stone and partly of wood. When I visited the falls of Niagara 
in the month of May, the ice carried down from Lake Erie by the 
rapids of the river was rushing past the piers of this bridge with 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 377 

a degree of violence that was quite terrific, and seemed every 
moment to threaten their destruction. 

The following very interesting account of this work is given by 
Captain Hall : — 

" The erection of such a bridge at such a place is a wonderful 
effort of boldness and skill, and does the projector and artist, Judge 
Porter, the highest honor as an engineer. This is the second 
bridge of the kind ; but the first being built in the still water at 
the top of the rapids, the enormous sheets of ice, drifted from 
Lake Erie, soon demolished the work, and carried it over the 
falls. Judge Porter, however, having observed that the ice in 
passing along the rapids was speedily broken into small pieces, 
fixed his second bridge much lower down, at a situation never 
reached by the larger masses of ice. 

" The essential difficulty was to estabhsh a foundation for his 
piers on the bed of a river covered with huge blocks of stone, and 
over which a torrent was dashing at the rate of six or seven miles 
an hour. He first placed two long beams, extending from the 
shore horizontally forty or fifty feet over the rapids, at the height 
of six or eight feet, and counterbalanced by a load at the inner 
ends. These were about two yards asunder ; but fight planks 
being laid across, men were enabled to walk along them in safety. 
Their extremities were next supported by upright bars passed 
through holes in the ends, and resting on the ground. A strong 
open frame-work of timber, not unlike a wild beast's cage, but 
open at top and bottom, was then placed in the water immediately 
under the ends of the beams. This being loaded with stones, was 
gradually sunk till some one part of it — no matter which — touched 
the rocks lying on the bottom. As soon as it was ascertained that 
this had taken place, the sinking operation was arrested, and a 
series of strong planks, three inches in thickness, were placed, 
one after the other, in the river, in an upright position, and touch- 
ing the inner sides of the frame-work. These planks, or upright 
posts, were now thrust downwards till they obtained a firm lodg- 
ment among the stones at the bottom of the river ; and, being then 
securely bolted to the upper part of the frame-work, might be con- 
sidered parts of it. As each plank reached to the ground, it acted 
as a leg, and gave the whole considerable stability, while the water 
flowed freely through openings about a foot wide, left between the 
planks. 

" This great frame or box, being then filled with large stones 
tumbled in from above, served the purpose of a nucleus to a larger 
pier built round it, of much stronger timbers firmly bolted together, 
and so arranged as to form an outer case, distant from the first pier 



378 ANECDOTES, 

about three feet on all its four sides. The intermediate space be- 
tween the two frames was then filled up by large masses of rock. 
This constituted the first pier. 

" A second pier was easily built in the same way, by projecting 
beams from the first one, as had been previously done from the 
shore ; and so on, step by step, till the bridge reached Goat Island. 
Such is the solidity of these structures, that none of them has ever 
moved since it was first erected, several years before we saw it." 



Thomas Godfrey, 

The inventor of the Quadrant, was born m the year 1704, near 
Germantown, Pennsylvania. Losing his father when very young, 
and his -mother marrying again, he was put out to learn the busi- 
ness of a painter and glazier at Stanton, a village in the neigh- 
borhood of Philadelphia. 

Very little has been preserved respecting his history. From 
all accounts he must have been a person of considerable ingenuity. 
His affection for mathematics occurred at an early period from a 
chance opportunity of reading a book on that science. Finding 
the subject perplexed with Latin terms, he applied himself with 
such diligence as to overcome the difficulty arising from this 
source. 

It is related that when Sir Isaac Newton's celebrated mathe- 
matical work made its appearancq, the best scholars were obhged 
to study it with care, and those of a lower rank durst not venture 
upon it at all. The American glazier, without encouragement 
from any quarter, and wholly self-taught, ventured upon and mas- 
tered this great work at an early age, and finally, with the embar- 
rassments of an humble trade and exti'eme poverty, produced one 
of the most useful of instruments. 

There has been heretofore considerable controversy existing, 
as to whom belonged the honor of this invention. The conclusion 
now is, that Hadley and Godfrey invented their instruments nearly 
simultaneously and independently. While the Englishman, with 
every advantage of pursuit, "stumbled upon" the invention, and is 
honored in its name, to our countryman belongs the true glory, 
for his was the result of unassisted genius, acting under adverse 
circumstances. 

Peace to his ashes : although no storied urn or monumental bust 
marks the spot of his repose, yet his memory will live as long as 
his country preserves a just sense of the merits of her sons, or 
the wings of commerce spread the sea. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 379 

Musical Kaleidescope. 

Some years ago an attempt was made — it was said, success- 
fully — ^to produce tunes on a principle not unlike that by which 
the kaleidescope was made to produce carpet and shawl patterns. 
The materials employed for the purpose consisted of prepared 
cards, on each of which a bar of an air was arranged according 
to a certain rhythm and key. Four packs of these cards, marked 
A, B, C, and D, were mingled together, and the cards were drawn 
and arranged before a performer at random. Thus an original 
air was obtained. The plan was said to succeed particularly well 
in waltzes. 



Bernard Palissy. 

The celebrated Bernard Palisst, to whom France was in- 
debted, in the sixteenth century, for the introduction of the manu- 
facture of enamelled pottery, had his attention first attracted to 
the art, his improvements in which form to this time the glory of 
his name among his countrymen, by having one day seen by 
chance a beautiful enamelled cup, which had been brought from 
Italy. He was then struggling to support his family by his at- 
tempts in the art of painting, in which he was self-taught; and it 
immediately occurred to him that, if he could discover the secret 
of making these cups, his toils and difficulties would be at an end. 
From that moment his whole thoughts were directed to this ob- 
ject ; and in one of his works he has himself given us such an 
account of the unconquerable zeal with which he prosecuted his 
experiments, as it is impossible to read vdthout the deepest 
interest. 

For some time he had little or nothing to expend upon the pur- 
suit which he had so much at heart ; but at last he happened to 
receive a considerable sum of money for a work which he had 
finished, and this enabled him to commence his researches. He 
spent the whole of his money, however, without meeting with any 
success, and he was now poorer than ever. Yet it was in vain 
that his wife and his friends besought him to relinquish what they 
deemed his chimerical and ruinous project. He borrowed more 
money, with which he repeated his experiments ; and, when he 
had no more fuel wherewith to feed his furnaces, he cut down his 
chairs and tables for that purpose. Still his success was uacon- 
siderable. He was now actually obliged to give a person, who 
had assisted him, part of his clothes by way of remuneration. 



380 ANECDOTES, 

having nothing else left ; and, with his wife and children starving 
before his eyes, and by their appearance silently reproaching him 
as the cause of their sufferings, he was at heart miserable enough. 
But he neither despaired nor suffered his friends to know what he 
felt ; preserving, in the midst of all his misery, a gay demeanor, 
and losing no opportunity of renewing his pursuit of the object 
which he all the while felt confident he should one day accomplish. 
And at last, after sixteen years of persevering exertion, his efforts 
were crowned with complete success, and his fortune was made. 
Palissy was, in all respects, one of the most extraordinary men 
of his time ; in his moral character displaying a high-mindedness 
and commanding energy altogether in harmony with the reach 
and originality of conception by which his understanding was dis- 
tinguished. 

Although a Protestant, he had escaped, through the royal favor, 
from the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; but, having been soon 
after shut up in the Bastile, he was visited in his prison by the 
king, who told him, that if he did not comply with the established 
religion, he should be forced, however unwillingly, to leave him 
in the hands of his enemies. " Forced !'' replied Palissy. "This 
is not to speak like a king ; but they who force you cannot force 
me ; I can die ! Your whole people have not the power to com- 
pel a simple potter to bend his knee H He never regained his 
liberty, but ended his life in the Bastile, in the ninetieth year of 
his age. 



Dyeing Chili of two Colors. 

The following method of dyeing the opposite sides of cloth 
different colors, is practised by the manufacturers : — A paste is 
prepared of the finest fiour, which is spread on one side : the 
cloth is then doubled, and the edges closely sewn together : on its 
immersion in the heated dye the enclosed air expands, and none 
of the coloring matter affects the inside of the cloth. When this 
process is completed, the cloth is unsewn, a paste spread on the 
side already dyed, and the same method is pursued with regard 
to the other color. 



Remarkable Wooden Bridge. 

Near Rochester, in the state of New- York, there are the re- 
mains of a bridge over the Genessee river, called Clyde Bridge, 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 381 

which, when entire, was altogethex' unrivalled by any thing of a 
similar kind, either in America or Europe. It consisted of a 
single arch of three hundred and fifty-two feet span, and one hun- 
dred and ninety-six feet high, from the surface of the river. It 
was seven hundred and eighteen feet long, and thirty wide ; and, 
though the whole structure contained more than one hundred and 
thirty thousand feet of timber, it was completed by twenty work- 
men in the space of nine months. Dr. Howison, who visited it 
about the year 1830, gives the following description of its then 
ruined state : — " The road I took led me to the edge of the cliffs 
that confine the Genessee river : this stream roared ninety feet 
beneath me, and a half arch stretched far above my head, as it 
were 'suspended in mid air,' while on the opposite cliffs heaps of 
planks, shattered beams, and many massy supporters, lay in hor- 
rible confusion, being the remains of that part of the structure 
which had fallen. Nothing can exceed the exquisite, the elegant 
proportions, and the aerial magnificence of that part of the bridge 
which remains entire. Its complicated architecture, the colossal 
span of its arch, its appalling height above the surface of the wa- 
ter, and the noble scenery around, fill the mind with astonishment. 
A little way up the river, the lesser Genessee rushes over broken 
rocks, while the woods which bound the prospect on all sides, and 
darkly overshadow the hoary cliffs, communicates a wildness to 
the scene, that makes the imaginative spectator almost believe 
that the bridge above him has been raised by the spells of a ma- 
gician, rather than by the hands of man." 



Celebrated and Curious Clocks. 

About the year 1369, an artist named James Dondi, constructed 
a clock for the city of Padua, by order of Herbert, Prince of Ca- 
rara, which was long considered the wonder of that age. This is 
the first clock on record having its dial-plate divided into twenty- 
four hours, (day and night ;) but it has been disputed, (as is com- 
mon in all first inventions,) whether or not Dondi, who was 
afterwards called Horologius, was the original inventor ; this clock, 
besides indicating the hours, represented the motions of the sun, 
moon, and planets, and also pointed out the different festivals of 
the year. 

The celebrated clock in the cathedral church of Strasburg, has 
been Jong celebrated for the great variety and complication of its 
movements ; it was begun some time in the year 1352, and erect- 
ed into the spire of the cathedral in the year 1370. The follow. 

17 



382 ANECDOTES, 

ing is a short description of this singular piece of mechanism : On 
the dial-plate was exhibited a celestial globe, with the motions of 
the sun, moon, earth, and planets, and the various phases of the 
moon ; also a sort of perpetual almanac, on which the day of the 
month was pointed out by a statue. It had a golden cock which 
on the arrival of every successive hour flapped its wings, stretched 
forth its neck, and crowed twice ! The hour was struck on the 
bell by a figure representing an angel, who opened a door and sa- 
luted a figure of the Virgin Mary. Near him stood another angel, 
who held an hour-glass, which he turned as soon as it had finished 
striking. The first quarter of the hour was struck by a child with 
an apple, the second quarter by a youth with an arrow, the third 
quarter by a man with the tip of his staff, and the fourth and last 
quarter by an old man with his crutch. 

This celebrated clock has, however, been much altered from the 
original, if not entirely renewed, by Conrad Dasypodius, professor 
of mathematics in the University of Strasburg. It was finished 
in the space of three years, having been begun in May, 1571, and 
finished June 24th, 1574. After it was replaced in the spire of 
the cathedral, it exhibited the following particulars : — The base- 
ment of the clock showed three dial-plates, one of which was round, 
and made up of several concentric circles ; the two interior ones 
perform their revolutions in a year, and thus serve as a calendar ; 
the two lateral dial-plates are squares, and serve to indicate the 
eclipses of the sun and mou..: Above the middle dial-plate, the 
days of the week ax'e represented by different divinities, supposed 
to preside over the planets from which their common appellations 
are derived. The divinity of the current day appears in a car 
rolling over the clouds, and at midnight retires to give place to the 
succeeding one. Before the basement a globe is displayed, borne 
on the wings of a pelican, round which the sun and moon are made 
to revolve, and consequently represents the motion of those bodies. 
The ornamental turret above said basement exhibits a large dial 
in the form of an astrolabe, which shows the annual motion of the 
sun and moon through the ecliptic, as also the hours of the day, 
etc. The phases of the moon are also marked on a dial-plate 
above. Over this dial-plate are represented the four ages of mg-m 
by symbolical figures, one of which passes every quarter of an 
hour, and marks this division of time by striking on small bells, 
(as in the old clock.) Two angels are a4so seen in motion, one 
striking a bell with a sceptre, while the other turns an hour-glass 
at the expiration of every hour. This celebrated clock has lately 
undergone repair. 

According to Dr. Derham, the oldest Enghsh made clock extant 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 383 

13 the one placed in the principal turret of the Palace Royal, Hamp- 
ton Court, near London ; it was constructed in the year 1540, by 
a maker of the initials of N. O. 

Some time about the year 1560, the celebrated Danish astrono- 
mer, Tycho Brahe, was in possession of four clocks, which indi- 
cated the hours, minutes, and seconds ; the largest of which had 
only three wheels, one of which was about three feet in diametei, 
and had twelve hundred teeth in it ; a proof that clock-work was 
then in a veiy imperfect state. Tycho, however, observed that 
there were some irregularities in the going of his clocks, which 
depended upon the changes of the atmosphere ; but he does not 
appear to have known how such an effect was produced, so as to 
apply some remedy to cure the evil. 

Moestlin had a clock in the year 1577, so constructed as to make 
just two thousand five hundred and twenty-eight beats in an hour, 
one hundred and forty-six of which were counted during the sun's 
passage over a meridian, or azimuth line, and thereby determined 
his diameter to be 34' 13" ; so the science of astronomy began 
thus early to be promoted by clock-work ; and as clocks first pro- 
moted the study of astronomy, it will be observed that astronomy 
in its turn gave rise to some of the most essential improvements 
in clock-work, and that the arts and sciences were more and more 
cultivated as improvements in clock-work kept pace with them, and 
employed the talents of the most ingenious men of every succeed, 
ing age. 

Mr. Ferguson, in his Select Mechanical Exercises, describes 
two very curious clocks of his invention and construction ; name- 
ly, a clock for showing the mean apparent diurnal motions of the 
sun and moon, the age and phases of the moon, with the mean 
time of her meridian passage, and the times of high and low water ; 
all of these particulars being exhibited by having only two wheels 
and one pinion added to the common clock movement ; in this clock 
the figure of the sun serves as an hour index, by going round the 
dial in twenty-four hours, and a figure of the moon goes round in 
twenty-four hours and fifty and a half minutes, being nearly the 
period of her revolution in the heavens from any meridian to the 
same meridian again. It has been remarked, that this clock must 
have been modelled by Mr. Ferguson from the fashion of the cele- 
brated clock at Hampton Court. The other clock by Mr. Fergu- 
son is an astronomical one, showing the mean apparent daily mo 
tions of the sun, moon, and stars, with the mean times of their rising, 
southing, and setting ; the places of the sun and moon in the echp- 
tic, and the age and phases of the moon for every day in the year. 

" On Monday, Api-il 27th, 1762," says Wesley, in his journal, 



384 ANECDOTES, 

" being at Lurgan, in Ireland, I embraced the opportunity which I 
had long desired of talking with Mr. Miller, the contriver of that 
statue which was in Lurgan when I was there before. It was the 
figure of an old man standing in a case, with a curtain drawn be- 
fore him, over against a clock which stood on the opposite side of 
the room. Every time the clock struck, he opened the door with 
one hand, drew back the curtain with the other, turned his head 
as if looking round on the company, and then said with a clear, 
loud, ai'ticulate voice, "past one,'''' or " two,'''' or " three,'''' and so 
on. But so many came to see this, (the like of which all allowed 
was not to be seen in Europe,) that Mr. Miller was in danger of 
being ruined ; not having time to attend to his own business. So, 
as none offered to pay him for his pains, he took the whole machine 
to pieces. 

In the gardens of the Palais Royal and the Luxembourg, at Paris, 
is a cannon clock ; a contrivance invented by one Rosseau. A 
burning-glass is fixed over the vent of a cannon, so that the sun's 
rays, at the moment of its passing the meridian, are concentrated 
on the priming, and the piece is fired. The glass is regulated for 
this purpose every month. 

It is now time to mention a clock of almost miraculous proper- 
ties, constructed by a Genevan mechanic of the name of Droz, 
towards the end of the last century. The clock in question was 
so constructed as to be capable of performing the following sur- 
prising movements, (if the account can be credited :) — There was 
exhibited on it a negro, a shepherd, and a dog. When the clock 
struck, the shepherd played six tunes on his flute, and the dog ap. 
preached and fawned upon him. This clock was exliibited to the 
king of Spain, who was greatly delighted with it. " The gentle- 
ness of my dog," said Droz, " is his least merit. If your majesty 
touch one of the apples which you see in the shepherd''s basket, 
you will admire the fidelity of this animal." The king took an 
apple, and the dog flew at his hand, and barked so loud, that the 
king''s dog, which was in the same room during the exhibition, began 
to bark also ; at this, the courtiers, not doubting tliat it was an affair 
of witchci-aft, hastily left the room, crossing themselves as they 
went out. The minister of marine, who was the only one who 
ventured to stay behind, having desired him to ask the negro what 
o'clock it was, the minister staid, but he obtained no reply. Droz 
then observed, that the negro had not yet learned Spanish, upon 
which the minister repeated the question in French, and the black 
immediately answered him. At this new prodigy the firmness of 
the minister also forsook him, and he retreated precipitately, de- 
claring that it must be the work of a supernatural being. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 385 

The last clock which I shall mention at present is one which I 
contrived and executed some five or six years ago. It shows the 
hour of the day, the mean time oi' the rising, southing, and setting 
of the sun and moon, the moon's age and phases throughout the 
year, (by having an horizon which expands and contracts by means 
of the compUcated wheel-work,) the day of the month, the mean 
time of the sun's entering into the zodiacal signs, sidereal and solar 
year, and consequently, the precession of the equinoxes, which in 
the clock has a slew backward motion through the ecliptic in 25,920 
years ; the flux and reflux of the tides are also exhibited in the arc 
of the dial-plate ; the movement contains somewhere about fifty- 
six wheels, sixteen pinions, nine levers for various uses, and about 
one hundred and thirty moveable pieces ; it goes for eight days, 
has what is called a dead beat scapement, and goes while wind- 
ing up. 

Horology is a branch of knowledge most intimately connected 
with astronomy, navigation, and chronology, and its usefuhiess is 
found linked more or less with all of the most important branches 
of science. Without a proper understanding of horology, the mar- 
iner could not with safety plough the ocean ; he could not calculate 
with accuracy his distance from land ; and in fine, without horolo- 
gy, histoiy would appear without dates, and even the more com. 
mon affairs of domestic life would run into confusion. The clock 
of early times was of veiy rude construction ; and it would seem 
from what remains of their history, that a loss or gain of five, ten, 
twenty, or more minutes per day, was not much regarded ; and if 
it kept within these wide bounds, the horologe was looked upon as 
" a miracle of art." But now, in modern times, when the art of 
horology has risen to such perfection that in astronomical clocks, 
with compensation pendulums of right principles, a gain or loss of 
five minutes in a year would by no means answer the present ad- 
vanced state of the sublime science of astronomy, neither would 
it in this state much further the art of navigation, in the prediction 
of a ship's way on the ocean. From the duplicate of an official 
statement now lying before me, it is stated that the Lords Com- 
missioners of the Admiralty, having advertised a premium of £300 
for the best chronometer which should be kept at Greenwich Ob- 
servatory for trial for one year, thirty-six were forwarded by the 
principal chronometer makers in London, and were kept during 
the year 1823. It was announced that if any chronometer varied 
six seconds, it could not obtain the prize at the end of the year. 
The chronometer marked 816 gained the prize, having kept time 
for many months within " one second and one eleven hundredth 
part of a second f'' This is certainly .the best chronometer on 



386 ANECDOTES, | 

record. Such perfection was never before attained, and it justly 'I 

excited the astonishment of all astronomers, and of the Board of i 

Admiralty. i 



Manufacture of Earilienware and Porcelain. 

" Etruria ! next beneatli thy magic hands 
Glides the quick wlieel, the plastic clay expands : 
Nerved with fine touch, thy fingers, as it turns, 
Mark the nice bounds of vases, ewers, and urns ; 
Round each fair form, in lines immortal trace 
Uncopied beauty and ideal grace." Darwin. 

The business of creating from a mass of clay " vases, ewers, 
and urns," which, in the homely language of the potter, is termed 
throwing, has always excited admiration. One moment, an un- 
fashioned lump of earth is cast on the block ; the next, it is seen 
starting into forms of elegance and beauty. A simple wheel, and 
hands untutored in other arts, effect this wondrous change. The 
means appear to be scarcely adequate to the end ; and thence the 
poet, with seemmg truth, asserts that " magic hands" perform this 
work of art. 

The remotest ages of antiquity lay claim to the invention of 
earthenware ; — probably it was carried to a higher point of im- 
provement than any other of the early manufactures of the world. 
It could originate only in those regions which produced its essential 
materials, and thus we find no vestiges of its having existed in 
countries where clay is unknown. In America, while some re- 
gions possess curious specimens of ancient pottery, others, in 
which the raw material has not been found, present no such an- 
tique remains. The natives of these latter countries have availed 
themselves of such substitutes as nature has provided. The gourd, 
called calabash, which they ingeniously carve and cut into various 
forms, affords them as abundant a supply of vessels for holding 
liquids as their simple modes of life require. 

The plastic power of clay was early discovered. It appears to 
have been employed in the most ancient times, as it still is in 
Egypt, to receive the impression of a seal, the affixing of which 
on property was probably considered, even at that period, as a 
legal protection. Job, in one of his poetic similes, says, (chap, 
xxxviii, 14,) " It is turned as clay to the seal." 

Many centuries before the art was practised in Europe, the 
Chinese had brought it very nearly to the degree of perfection 
which their porcelain now exhibits. In this one branch of art 
they have undisputed possession of materials of the most perfect 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 387 

combination of colors, of unrivalled brilliance, but of " ideal grace" 
not one particle. 

From Asia this art entered Europe through Greece, the land 
of "creative genius." The Corinthian potters especially displayed, 
in their designs and execution, exquisite taste and skill. Their 
works were more prized than diamond or ruby, and were amongst 
the most valuable decorations in the dwellings of princes. Greece, 
supplying with porcelain Egypt, the mother country of so many 
other arts, at length taught it to establish its own pottery, and, 
spreading the useful art far and wide, to become itself the benefac- 
tor of other regions. 

A Phoenician colony, it is supposed, founded the ancient 
Etruria, whence modern Europe has drawn models of skill and 
beauty. 

Though conquerors ought seldom to be regarded as benefactors, 
the Romans in many instances were such to the nations they sub- 
dued. Wherever they obtained a permanent empire, they planted 
their arts and manufactures. Though some maintain that Phoe- 
nicia supplied Britain with earthen vessels in exchange for its 
metals, there are so many vestiges of Roman manufactures as to 
corroborate the belief of her being indebted to that people for the 
art of the potter. In the neighborhood of Leeds the remembrance 
of a Roman pottery is still recorded in the name of the village 
which rose upon its site — Poller Newton. 

Although introduced into Britain at so early a period, the pot- 
ter''s art long remained in its rudest state. The coarse red ware 
only was made, but was not of sufficient beauty or utility to be 
received as a substitute for utensils and vessels of wood and metal, 
as earthenware, in its improved state, has since been. In every 
dwelling, even the humblest, earthenware and china are now es- 
sential, and not only in England, but in all the civilized regions 
of the world. This change was principally effected by the indus- 
try and comprehensive mind of one individual — Josiah Wedgwood, 
the founder of modern Etruria. The Staffordshire potteries, 
which in his day consisted of a few thinly peopled villages, now 
present a continued chain of manufactories, extending for miles, 
in which tens of thousands of people are constantly employed 
and supported. 

For centuries previous to the time of which we are speaking, 
the manufacture of earthenware had, in this country, remained 
unimproved ; and in Europe, generally, it had been almost as 
stationary. From the east, the wealthy and luxurious of the 
western hemisphere were supplied with porcelain, valued on ac- 
count of its rareness rather than for its beauty ; while the humbler 



388 ANECDOTES, 

ranks of society sought no other than metal or wooden domestic 
utensils, unless they added to these some of the rude works of 
their native potters. 

At length, in France, Germany, and Italy, princes and nobles, 
as if ashamed of the neglect the art had experienced in the most 
civilized portion of the world, founded in their respective countries 
porcelain manufactories. These subsequently became of con- 
siderable eminence. The Sevres, Dresden, and Berlin porcelain 
grew in time to be the admiration of Europe, and was mingled 
with the works of China, which became less prized. But the 
benefit conferred by these royal and noble establishments was 
limited. Wealth was expended on them ; talents were devoted 
to them ; but their works never circulated throughout all ranks, 
nor effected any general change in domestic life . they have been 
limited to the use only of the noble and the rich. 

These manufactories cannot claim the merit of such general 
utility as those of England, conducted by a different class of men 
and upon different principles. Here, unaided by the hand of 
power, without wealth, and sometimes almost without education, 
men, the founders of British manufactories, have often started 
from the level of humble life into prominent and commanding situ- 
ations. Dispensing means of subsistence and opening prospects 
of improved condition to thousands, they have acquired an influ- 
ence in their day which nobles might covet. Among this class of 
benefactors to their race, the late Josiah Wedgwood stood pre- 
eminent. His early education, as was usual in his sphere, was 
very limited. Education in his day was supposed to be incom- 
patible with the habits of a man of business. The disadvantages 
of this narrow system were early perceived by the intelligent 
Wedgwood, and his first step to the eminence he afterwards at- 
tained was the education of himself Though apprenticed to a 
potter, he found leisure for acquisitions in literary knowledge, 
which subsequently enabled him to sustain a part in the literary 
and philosophical society of his time. 

He had no wild or irrational ambition which induced him to 
attempt attainments beyond his reach : this would have ended in 
disappointment and downfall. His dignified view was fixed to the 
improvement of himself and his condition by the most laudable 
means ; and the result, after years of steady application, accom- 
panied with great toil and anxiety, was an ample and distinguished 
success. 

About thirty years before he commenced the foundation of his 
future eminence, an accident had given rise to improvement in the 
earthenwares of Staffordshire. A potter from Burslem, (the centre 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 389 

of the potteries, and the birthplace of Mr. Wedgwood,) in travel- 
Hng to London on horseback, was detained on the road by the 
inflamed eyes of his horse. Seeing the hostler, the horse-doctor 
of those times, burn a piece of flint and afterwards reduce it to a 
fine white powder, applying it as a specific for the diseased eyes, 
a notion arose in the mind of the traveller as to the possibility of 
combining this beautiful white powder with the clay used in his 
craft, so as to effect a change in the color and body of his ware. 
The experiment succeeded, and this was the origin of the English 
white-ware. It will not be foreign to our subject to remark here, 
how every trifling circumstance that occurs is turned to account, 
when the mind fs seriously at work on any subject. We know 
that the falling of an apple, the passing of the sun's rays through 
a vessel of water, the swinging of a suspended lamp, casualties 
apparently trifling, were fraught with important discoveries, be- 
cause observed by men deeply engaged in scientific investigations. 
We are not presuming to place a simple potter on a footing 
with Newton or Galileo — men of mighty powers ; but we claim 
for him a point of resemblance, because like them he pursued his 
observations with investigation and experiment, so well directed 
as to ensure improvement and success. This man, whose name 
was Ashbury, also brought to his manufactory the superior clays 
of Devonshire and Cornwall ; and as the potter''s wheel had been 
somewhat improved by a person named Alsager, we may consider 
that, though still vast and unoccupied, the field of improvement 
was discovered a short time before Mr. Wedgwood entered it. 
We must here do honor to the French philosopher and naturalist, 
Reaumur, who at a rather earlier period had been almost the first 
in forming the connection between science and the arts of life, from 
that time indissoluble, and ever since producing improvement to 
which no termination can be foreseen. Science hitherto had been 
regarded as an abstract pursuit — leading to little practical good, 
if not unfitting those engaged in it for the pursuits of life. The 
chemical examination which Reaumur made on oriental china, 
anticipated what in time the common experiments of the manu- 
facturer might have effected, though not with equal certainty or 
rapidity. Upon those experiments the Royal French manufactory 
of Sevres was founded. This instance of the aid which science 
yielded to a manufacture similar to his own, was not likely to be 
unheeded by Mr. Wedgwood, and, accordingly, we find him effect- 
ing, in England, that union between science and his art, which 
Reaumur had done in France. As soon as his means permitted 
him to deviate without pecuniary inconvenience from the beaten 
path, he appears to have employed men of science to aid him in 

17* 



390 ANECDOTES, 

his extended views. One amiable man, Mr. Chisholm, a superior 
chemist of the time, devoted his whole life to this business. Under 
the direction of the intelligence and indefatigable spirit of Mr. 
Wedgwood, he proceeded day by day, from experiment to experi- 
ment, until most of the principal objects in view were attained. 

Varieties of clay were sought for, and the comparative value 
of their properties for the manufacture in question was ascertained, 
together with the true proportion of calcined flint with which each 
variety would unite, and the degree of heat to which each could 
be submitted. The glaze also, it has been said, gave rise to a 
most anxious and assiduous investigation on the part of these in- 
defatigable laborers, which ended without their attaining the object 
they so earnestly desired. The rude brown ware before men- 
tioned had been always glazed with fused salt, by a process un- 
certain in its results, and one which, producing noxious fumes, 
rendered an earthenware manufactory a nuisance to its neighbor- 
hood. The improvement in this department of the manufacture 
led to the substitution of white lead for salt ; but although the air 
on glazing days was no longer odious to breathe, the substitute 
acted as a powerful poison on those employed in this branch of 
the business. Every precaution which his humanity could sug- 
gest Mr. Wedgwood adopted, to prevent the injurious influence 
of the lead on his work-people : but the poison was too subtle ; it 
was imbibed through the pores as well as inhaled ; and paralysis 
often terminated the lives of those employed in glazing, or ren- 
dered a protracted existence an evil to them. Mr. Wedgwood's 
humane endeavors to discover another substitute for. the lead were 
never realized, although his hopes often represented to him the 
possibility of its being effected. The evil still exists. 

The forms and coloi's were no less objects of his attention than 
the body of his manufacture. Oxides of metals, particularly those 
of iron, gave him an endless variety of colors, and for his forms 
and ornaments he took models from the best standards of grace 
and beauty which the ancient world afforded him. He also em- 
ployed both English and foreign artists of merit in modelling and 
designing. The early talent of Flaxman, and the skilful pencil 
of Webber, were engaged in his service ; of which there are evi- 
dences in the perfect imitation of the Barbarini vase he has left 
behind him, and in the classic designs which decorate the beautiful 
imitation of jasper which he invented. Thus his manufactory 
comprehended every thing his art could attain ; and taste, conve- 
nience, and comfort could draw thence ample gratification. Ex- 
cellence was his aim — whether in the common articles of use, or 
in the choicer productions of his taste ; and so ambitious was he 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 391 

to maintain the reputation of his manufacture, that he sacrificed 
every ai'ticle which came from the oven in an imperfect state. 

Sucli was the eminence Wedgwood reached as a manufacturer, 
that he carried every thing before him. His ware displaced 
foreign china in his own country, and spread itself over every pari 
of Europe — not only ornamenting the palace, but filling the cot- 
tage with means of comfort and cleanliness. No ware could be 
sold that had not his name stamped on each article. Wedgwood 
became a generic term — the question being also asked on the 
continent, "Have you any Wedgwood?" He secured this pre- 
eminence by the excellence of his productions, and not by exclu- 
sive advantages. He always steadily refused to obtain patents 
for his inventions, saying, " The world is wide enough for us all." 



Inventors and Poets. 

On reflection it will be found that mechanical invention, differs 
nothing from that which' gives value to those pursuits considered 
to be more mental and refined. Homer and his Iliad, Virgil and his 
jEneid, Milton and his Paradise Lost, were minds and productions 
of the same exquisite fibre and tention, with Savary and Watt, with 
their engines, Huygens with his watch, Arkwright with his spin- 
ning frame, Meikle with his threshing machine, Bramah with his 
hydraulic press. In fact, observation frequently shows, that the 
power of constructing poetry and machines are miited in the same 
individual. Hooke made verses as well as macliines, and could 
as well have written a sonnet to his " mistress' eyebrow" as have 
presented his tlairty-seven projects for flying. Samuel Moreland 
indited love songs, and sang them to his sweetheart. When total 
blindness had fallen on the jovial old man, he buried the effusions 
of his youth, considering them to be " gay deceits," and betook 
himself in his ninetieth year to the composition of psalms. Ark- 
Wright was famed among his customers for a light hand and an 
exquisite edge, and for verses which cut as keen as his razors. 
Watt in his youth was a rhymester, and few men in his generation 
read more faiiy tales and poetiy, — even in the meridian of his life, in 
the busiest period of his employment, the greater portion of his 
time was devoted to indulgence in this mental luxury. Few who 
knew the excellent Rennie, near the close of his life, would have 
dreamed of finding under the exterior of this inflexible man of bu- 
siness, an enthusiastic admirer of poetry and music. The venera- 
ble Telfoid, when building rough stone walls as a journeyman 



392 ANECDOTES, 

mason, was an esteemed contributor to the poetical corner of the 
Scots Magazine. The inventor of the celebrated congreve rocket 
had previously " let oflF" many poetical squibs. Cartwright early 
distinguished himself for his poetical composition ; but the fine 
taste and exalted feeling vv^hich pervade them, must yield to the 
exquisite invention and extensive usefulness of his povi^er-loom. 

Poets, as vi^ell as mechanics, differ in the manner in which they 
exhibit their conceptions. One excels in loftiness of thought, 
another in delicacy of perception ; a third pleases by his harmoni- 
ous numbers, and a fourth, is esteemed for the useful tendency of 
his writings. Some mechanics delight in clock-work, — others in 
steam engines — ^the machines of others are polished even to a bolt 
head — and a ponderous mass whose jerking motion is the nuisance 
of a district, constructed by one whose ear is more refined than 
his I'ival manufacturers, moves with all the softness of a watch ; and 
another applies the principles of a toy to a machine for abridging 
labor. -There are rhymesters who will spin a fine thought through 
an infinity of words ; there are also artist wire-drawers, who, by 
great skill, will draw an ounce or two of gold into a thread which 
will encircle the world. Your sounding, flashy, sparkling authors 
of a thousand brilliant nothings, are a sort of kaleidescope artists, 
whose most original, regular, and harmonious combinations, are 
produced by a thread of rag, a pin's head, a leaf, a bead, or a bit 
of crystal. 



Public Works of the United States. 

" At the first view, one is struck with the temporary and appa. 
rently unfinished state of many of the American works, and is 
very apt, before inquiring into the subject, to impute to want of 
abiUty what turns out, on investigation, to be a judicious and in- 
genious arrangement to suit the circumstances of a new country, 
of which the chmate is severe, — a country where stone is scarce 
and wood is plentiful, and where manual labor is very expensive. 
It is vain to look to the American works for the finish that charac- 
terizes those of France, or the stability for which those of Britain 
are famed. Undressed slopes of cuttings and embankments, 
roughly built rubble arches, stone parapet-walls coped with timber, 
and canal-locks wholly constructed of that material, everywhere 
offend the eye accustomed to view European workmanship. But 
it must not be supposed that this arises from want of knowledge 
of the principles of engineering, or of skill to do them justice in 
the execution. The use of wood, for example, which may be con- 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 393 

sidered by many as wholly inapplicable to the construction of 
canal-locks, where it must not only encounter the tear and wear 
occasioned by the lockage of vessels, but must be subject to the 
destructive consequences of alternate immersion in water and 
exposure to the atmosphere, is yet the result of deliberate judg- 
ment. The Americans have, in many cases, been induced to use 
the material of the country, ill adapted though it be in some re- 
spects to the purposes to which it is applied, in order to meet the 
wants of a rising community, by speedily and perhaps superficially 
completing a work of importance, which would otherwise be de- 
layed, from a want of the means to execute it in a more substan- 
tial manner ; and although the works are wanting in finish, and 
even in solidity, they do not fail for many years to serve the pur- 
poses for which they were constructed, as efficiently as works of a 
more lasting description. 

" When the wooden locks on any of the canals begin to show 
symptoms of decay, stone structures are generally substituted, 
and materials suitable for their erection are with ease and expedi- 
tion conveyed from the part of the country where they are most 
abundant, by means of the canal itself to which they are to be 
applied ; and thus the less substantial work actually becomes the\ 
means of facilitating its own improvement, by afibrding a more 
easy, cheap, and speedy transport of those durable and expensive 
materials, without the use of which, perfection is unattainable. 

" One of the most important advantages of constructing the 
locks of canals, in new countries such as America, of wood, un- 
questionably is, that in proportion as improvement advances and 
greater dimensions or other changes are required, they can be in- 
troduced at little cost, and without the mortification of destroying 
expensive and substantial works of masonry. Some of the locks 
on the great Erie canal are formed of stone, but had they all been 
made of wood, it would, in all probability, have been converted 
into a ship-canal long ago. 

" But the locks are not the only parts of the American canals 
in which wood is used. Aqueducts over ravines or rivers are 
generally formed of large wooden troughs resting on stone pillars, 
and even more temporary expedients have been chosen, the inge- 
nuity of which can hardly fail to please those who view them as 
the means of carrying on improvements, which, but for such con- 
trivances, might be stopped by the want of funds necessary to 
complete them. 

" Mr. M'Taggart, the resident engineer for the Rideau canal in 
Canada, gave a good example of the extraordinary expedients often 
resorted to, by suggesting a verv novel scheme for carrying that 



394 ANECDOTES, 

work across a thickly wooded ravine situate in a part of the coun- 
try whei'e materials for forming an embankment, or stone for 
building the piers of an aqueduct, could not be obtained but at a 
great expense. The plan consisted of cutting across the large 
trees in the line of the works, at the level of the bottom of the 
canal, so as to render them fit for supporting a platform on their 
trunks, and on this platform the trough containing the water of the 
canal was intended to rest. I am not aware whether this plan was 
carried into effect, but it is not more extraordinary than many of 
the schemes to which the Americans have resorted in constructing 
their public works ; and the great traffic sustained by many of 
them, notwithstanding the temporary and hurried manner in which 
they are finished, is truly wonderful." 



Manufactory of the Gobelins. 

Among the curiosities of Paris, is a manufacture of tapestry, 
which is sustained as a sort of plaything by the nation. It is 
called the manufactory of the Gobelins, from the name of the dyers 
who commenced the works in ancient times, and established here 
their dye-house for coloring their worsted yarns, with which the 
pieces of tapestry were wrought. The most beautiful paintings are 
placed as patterns by the tapestry weavers, who rival the Chinese 
in fidelity and exactnes of imitation. An artist of spirit who may 
have the genius to design and finish a piece of painting upon can- 
vass, could hardly be brought to spend one and often two years, in 
copying the same picture by inserting small bits of colored worsted, 
particle by particle, by means of the slow and tedious labors of the 
loom. Tapestry weaving must remain an imitative art instead of 
one that can confer honor on an artist for any originality, or bold 
touches of genius in the art of designing. Even at the moderate 
wages paid the workmen here, the cost of a single sheet of tapestry 
frequently exceeds $1400, and several years are required to com. 
plete it. So bright, vivid, and well blended are the colors of the 
worsted thread, that few persons at the distance of three or four 
yards would suppose them to be the product of the loom. The 
frame that contains the extended threads of the warp, is placed in 
a perpendicular position, and the workman is seated behind the 
frame ; carefully arranged by his side, are hundreds of little bobbins 
of worsted, of every imaginable color, the shade of which are so 
well blended and approximated to each other, that one can hardJy 
tell where one terminates or another begins. — These bobbins he 
skilfully selects and holds near the picture which he is copying, 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 395 

to compare the tints. Thread by thread he proceeds, and after 
satisfying himself in the selection of the color, he inserts a piece of 
worsted yarn, perhaps in some spots not longer than one eighth of an 
inch, using the bobbin itself instead of a shuttle, to pass the worsted 
filhng in and out between the threads of the warp. After effecting 
tliis operation, he breaks off the yarn and crowds it in between the 
thread and the warp, by the teeth of a comb ; he then seeks again 
for another tint to correspond with the picture before him. The 
warp or chain is composed of white woollen threads, and the weft, 
of all shades of colors that are prepared on the easel of the painter. 
The threads of the warp are not opened by means of treadles, or 
harness to allow the filling to be shot between them, as in common 
weaving ; nor is a slaie or reed employed to press down or close 
the threads of the weft, after it is drawn in among the threads of 
the warp ; but the artist uses for this pui'pose only a sort of comb, 
the teeth of which, after every operation of inserting a little piece 
of yarn, are employed to press it down and close it together in the 
work. The figure of an extended arm, or of a head, is wrought by 
the artist before he completes the filling, composing the back-ground 
around it. The form of a beautiful female may thus appear to be 
starting up in glowing colors, amid the threads spread like a cob. 
web over a square frame. A hand when thus woven in advance of 
the texture around it, seems as if formed of flesh and blood, and thrust 
amid the cords of a harp to sweep the sounding strings. This 
costly tapestry resembles the fine worsted work, executed in single 
stitch, by the fair hands of the ladies in their hours of domestic re- 
laxation. It is so dehcately composed that the outlines of the figure 
show no angular uneven edges ; the surface of the tapestry being 
nearly as smooth and close as that of the oil painting from which 
it is copied. This estabUshment is supported at the national 
charge, the sheets of tapestry are used as ornaments of the royal 
palaces, and sometimes as royal gifts. 



March of Umircllas. 

The following anecdote from a Scotch paper is well worth pre- 
serving. " When umbrellas marched first into this quarter, (Blair- 
gorie,) they were sported only by the minister and the laird, and 
were looked upon by the common class of people as perfect phe- 
nomena. One day Daniel M — n went to Colonel McPherson, at 
Blairgorie House : when about to return, it came on a shower, and 
the colonel politely offered him the loan of an umbrella, which was 
politely and proudly accepted ; and Daniel, with his head two or 



396 ANECDOTES, 

three inches higher than usual, marched off. Not long after he 
had left, however, to the coloneFs surprise, he sees Daniel posting 
towards him with all possible haste, still overtopped by his cotton 
canopy, (silk umbrellas were out of the question in those days,) 
which he held out saluting him with, " Hae, hae, Kurnel ! this 11 
never do ; there 's no a door in a'' my house that HI tak'' it in — my 
verra barn-door winna taF it in." 



The French Machine Maker. 

It is not long ago that I went to visit an interesting old man, 
who lives by the side of the Rhone, at a short distance from Lyons. 
Have you ever heard of the Jacquard machine, one of the most 
ingenious of modern discoveries, by which the most complicated 
patterns can be woven with the same ease as the plainest ; a ma- 
chine which enables an ordinary weaver to produce all those many- 
colored oriental shawls, fashionable silks, and variegated ribbarids, 
which formerly required a dexterity possessed only by a very few, 
and a continuous labor that made them costly and inaccessible to 
any but the rich ? Now-a-days silk-stufFs, exquisitely tasteful and 
beautiful, can be purchased for a small sum of money, and are 
worn by hundreds of thousands of the classes whose garments 
were formerly made of coarse wool or hemp. The old man I 
speak of was Jacquard, and he was one of the great causes of this 
diffusion of enjoyment. As I happened to be near the place of 
his abode, I determined to visit him, and did so, accompanied by 
several friends. 

It was a sunshiny day, I remember, and we had a delightful 
walk along the margin of the rapid Rhone, a river renowned in 
history, and whose banks are still crowded with the ruins of past 
time, calling to mind the days when every feudal chief was obliged 
to shut himself up in high and embattled towers, built often upon 
dangerous crags, in order to be secure from the attacks of some 
neighboring lord. The petty sovereigns and the petty feuds have 
passed away together. Every thing now bears the face of security, 
of industry, of peace. Talking of the delightful contrast, and 
hoping that nations would one day harmonize, as the once con- 
tending peasantry of the Rhone now harmonize, we reached old 
Jacquard 's abode. 

He welcomed us with heartiness. " But come forth into my 
vineyard," he said ; " let us get among the grapes and the sun- 
shine f so he led the way with a tottering step. " Hither, hither," 
he called out: "come with me to to the arbor." We followed 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 397 

him there. " Let me sit in the centre, and let me tell you how 
glad I am to see you, my friends !" We sat down around him ; 
the clematis was blended with the vine, and together they made 
the roof and the walls of the quiet retreat, where every day the 
venerable old man was used to sit, and to recall the events of his 
much checkered life. Some of those events you shall hear as he 
himself related them, and you will see what perseverance — virtuous 
perseverance — is, and what virtuous perseverance can do. 

I told Jacquard that I was an Enghshman, and as he had been 
one of the benefactors of my country, I was come to thank him. 
" How proud I am," said he, " to be visited by an Englishman ! 
If I have ever done any good, I owe the very first suggestion to 
England. It was an English newspaper that led me to occupy my 
thoughts with mechanical improvements. But for that, perhaps, I 
should still have been a poor strawhat maker in an obscure street 
at Lyons, instead of the happy man you see me, honored by my 
native town, recompensed by the government (pointing to the red 
ribband which he wore at his button-hole,) and pensioned by the 
state." "But how," I inquired, "did you owe to England your 
first success ?" " It was," he answered, " during the peace of 
Amiens, and we were accustomed to meet, in order to talk politics, 
at a friend's house on the quay. It was there a translated extract 
from an Enghsh newspaper met my eye, stating that a premium 
was ofiered by a society in London to any one who would apply ma- 
chinery to the manufacture of nets. I meditated long upon the matter, 
and, after many attempts, I made a machine by which nets could 
be produced. It was the first of my mechanical experiments, and 
I will tell you, if you have the patience and the desire to hear me, 
how that trifling affair was the beginning of my good fortune and 
my fame." Nothing, we assured him, could gratify us more than 
to continue his history. " Well, then," said he, " I contrived a 
machine and made a net by it, and thought no more of the matter. 
I carried the net about in my pocket, and one day, meeting with a 
friend who had heard the paragraph of the English paper read, I 
threw it to hiin, saying, " There is the difficulty got over, and the 
net made !" And the matter passed out of my mind. I had per- 
severed until I had succeeded, and there was an end of it. Some 
time afterwards, I was much surprised at getting an order from the 
Prefect to appear at the prefectal palace. I went, and the Prefect 
said he had only lately heard of my proficiency in the mechanical 
arts. It was a great mystery to me ; I really did not comprehend 
his meaning, and I stammered out a sort of an apology for not un- 
derstanding him. My net and the machine that made it had gone 
quite out of my head. The Prefp-^t expressed surprise that I should 



398 ANECDOTES, 

deny my own abilities, but at last he produced the very net that I 
had made, and which to me had seemed a very trifling affair, as 
it was in reality. ' I have orders from the Emperor to send the 
machine to Paris,' said the Prefect. ' From the Emperor ! That's 
strange indeed ; but you must give me time to make it.' So I set 
about it, and in a few weeks I completed it, and trudged away with 
my machine, and a half-manufactured net in it, to the Prefect. He 
was very impatient to see it work, so I bade him count the number 
of loops, and then strike the bar with his foot ; he did so, and 
another loop was added to the number. Great was the delight 
that he expressed, and he told me that no doubt I should hear from 
him again. I heard from him again, in truth, very soon, and in a 
way that perplexed me not a little ; for his first greeting was, 
' You must go to Paris, M. Jacquard, by his majesty's orders.' 
' To Paris, sir ! how can that be ? What have I done ? How can 
I leave my affairs here V ' Not only must you go to Paris, but 
you must go to-day — ^you must go immediately !' These were not 
times in which there was any resisting the orders of authority ; so 
I said, ' If it must be so, it must ; I will go home and pack up my 
baggage, and I shall be ready to obey your commands.' ' No ! 
M. Jacquard !' said the Prefect, ' you cannot go home ; a carriage 
is waiting to take you to Paris.' ' Not go home ! Not say adieu to 
my wife ! Not make up my luggage for a journey of 150 leagues !' 
'I have orders,' said the Prefect, 'to despatch you instantly; you 
may send to your wife ; you may tell her to give to my messenger 
any thing you desire to take — I will provide you with money ; but 
there must be no delay.' There was no arguing about the matter, 
so I sent to my wife, got a small bundle of clothes, jumped into the 
carriage, and away ! away ! we were off, full gallop towards Paris ! 
When we reached the first station, I opened the door, and I found 
myself stopped by a gendarme, who said to me, ' Sir, if you please, 
you are not to go out of my sight.' I found I was a prisoner, and 
escorted by military force to the capital ; things were so managed 
at that time ; there was, however, no use in complaining ; so I 
made the best of my fate, and submitted in good humor. 

" I reached Paris for the first time in my life, and strange was 
my introduction there. I was escorted to the Consei'vatoiy ; and 
whom should I see there but Napoleon and Carnot ! Carnot said 
to me suddenly, ' Are you the man that can do what Almighty God 
cannot do ? — tie a knot in a stretched string V I was overwhelmed 
with the presence of the Emperor and the abruptness of his minis- 
ter, and knew not what to answer. But Napoleon spoke very 
condescendingly to me about my discovery ; told me he would pro- 
tect me, and urged me to go on with my mechanical pursuits. Ma- 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 399 

terials were brought me, and I was directed to make a net-produc- 
ing machine in the Conservatory, which I did At that time a 
superb shawi was being woven for the Empress Josephine, and for 
its production they were employing a very costly and complicated 
loom ; a loom upon which more than twenty thousand francs had 
been expended. It appeared to me that the same effect might be 
produced by a less perplexing machinery, and I recollected having 
seen a model by Vaucauson, in which I thought a principle was 
developed which I could apply to the desired purpose. Long 
thought and perseverance enabled me to produce the mechanism 
that bears my name. When I had succeeded, the Emperor con- 
ferred this decoration upon me, and granted me a pension of a 
thousand crowns. But on returning to Lyons, far different was 
my destiny. When I endeavored to introduce my machine, the 
workmen broke out into open revolt. I was eveiy where de- 
nounced as the enemy of the people, as the man who had been 
scheming the destruction of their trade, and the starvation of them- 
selves and their families. Three plots were laid to assassinate me, 
and twice I had great difficulty in escaping with my life. So strong 
was the tide of prejudice and indignation, that my machine was 
ordered to be openly destroyed by the public authorities. It was 
broken to pieces in the great square of the city. The iron was 
sold for old iron, the wood for fire-wood. Think what a shipwreck 
of all my hopes ! 

"I did not quite lose courage. The successful competition of 
foreigners, and the consequent decline of trade in France, led some 
intelligent manufacturers, a few years after, to think of the man 
whose discovery might perhaps bring some relief to that depression 
under which they labored. They found strength of mind to make 
another experiment.- It succeeded. Silks of greater beauty were 
introduced, at a lower cost. There was a dawn of prosperity, and 
it has continued to shine. Of that machine which had been de- 
voted to ignominy and destruction, I have now seen thousands in- 
troduced, and there is now scarcely any man so blind or so ignorant 
as not to acknowledge that its introduction has been a great bless- 
ing. It has given labor to tens of thousands, and I have had a 
complete recompense for all I have gone through." 

We talked of these and other matters till the shades of coming 
twilight bade us depart. The happy old man is still in my me- 
mory ; a striking instance of virtuous perseverance, crowned with 
fit reward. 



400 ANECDOTES, 

Manufacturing Establishments. 

We have seen that the apphcation of the Division of Labor tends 
to produce cheaper articles ; that it thus increases the demand ; 
and gradually, by the effect of competition, or by the hope of 
incl'eased gain, that it causes large capitals to be embarked in 
extensive factories. Let us now examine the influence of this 
accumulation of capital directed to one object. In the first place, 
it enables the most important principle on which the advantages 
of the division of labor depends, to be carried almost to its extreme 
limits : not merely is the precise amount of skill purchased which 
is necessary for the execution of each process, but throughout every 
stage — from that in which the raw material is procured, to that 
by which the finished produce is conveyed into the hands of the 
consumer — the same economy of skill prevails. The quantity of 
work produced by a given number of people is greatly augmented 
by such an extended arrangement ; and the result is necessarily a 
great reduction in the cost of the article which is brought to market. 

Amongst the causes which tend to the cheap production of any 
article, and which are connected with the employment of additional 
capital, may be mentioned the care which is taken to prevent the 
absolute waste of any part of the raw material. An attention to 
this circumstance sometimes causes the union of two trades in one 
factory, which otherwise might have been separated. 

An enumeration of the arts to which the horns of cattle are ap. 
plicable, will furnish a striking example of this kind of economy. 
The tanner who has purchased the raw hides, separates the horns, 
and sells them to the makers of combs and lanterns. The horn 
consists of two pai'ts, an outward horny case, and an inward conical 
substance, somewhat intermediate between indurated hair and bone. 
The first process consists in separating these two parts, by means 
of a blow against a block of wood. The horny exterior is then cut 
into three portions with a frame-saw. 

1. The lowest of these, next the root of the horn, after under- 
going several processes, by which it is flattened, is made into 
combs. 2. The middle of the horn, after being flattened by heat, 
and having its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin 
layers, and forms a substitute for glass, in lanterns of the commonest 
kind. 3. The tip of the horn is used by the makers of knife-han- 
dies, and of the tops of whips, and for other similar purposes. 4. 
The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in water. A 
large quantity of fat rises to the surface ; this is put aside, and sold 
to the makers of yellow soap. 5. The liquid itself is used as a 
kind of glue, and is purchased by cloth-dressers for stiffening. 6. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 401 

The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then sent to the 
mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for manure. 
7. Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of 
the horn are applied, the clippings which arise in comb-making are 
sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year after they are 
spread over the soil they have comparatively little effect, but during 
the next four or five their efficiency is considerable. The shavings 
which form the refuse of the lantern-maker, are of a much thinner 
texture : some of them are cut into various figures, and painted, 
and used as toys ; for being hygrometric, they curl up when placed 
on the palm of a warm hand. But the greater part of these shav- 
ings also are sold for manure, and from their extremely thin and 
divided form, the full effect is produced upon the first crop. 

In many of the large establishments of our manufacturing dis- 
tricts, substances are employed which are the produce of remote 
countries, and which are, in several instances, almost peculiar to 
a few situations. The discovery of any new locality, where such 
articles exist in abundance, is a matter of great importance to any 
establishment which consumes them in large quantities ; and it has 
been found, in some instances, that the expense of sending persons 
to great distances, purposely to discover and to collect such pi'o- 
duce, has been amply repaid. Thus it has happened, that the 
snowy mountains of Sweden and Norway, as well as the warmer 
hills of Corsica, have been almost stripped of one of their vegetable 
productions, by agents sent expressly from one of our lai'gest es- 
tablishments for the dyeing of calicoes. Owing to the same com- 
mand of capital, and to the scale upon which the operations of large 
factories are carried on, their returns admit of the expense of send- 
ing out agents to examine into the wants and tastes of distant 
countries, as well as of trying experiments, which, although pro- 
fitable to them, would be ruinous to smaller establishments possess- 
ing more limited resources. 

When capital has been invested in machinery, and in buildings 
for its accommodation, and when the inhabitants of the neighbor- 
hood have acquired a knowledge of the modes of working at the 
machines, reasons of considerable weight are required to cause 
their removal. Such changes of position do, however, occur ; and 
they have been alluded to by the committee on the fluctuation of 
manufacturers'' employment, as one of the causes interfering most 
materially with a uniform rate of wages ; it is therefore of par- 
ticular importance to the workmen to be acquainted with the real 
causes which have driven manufactures from their anqient seats. 

" The migration or change of place of any manufactui-e has 
sometimes arisen from improvements of machinery not applicable 



402 ANECDOTES, 

to the spot where such manufacture was carried on, as appears to 
have been the case with the woollen manufacture, which has in 
great measure migrated from Essex, Suffolk, and other southern 
counties, to the northern districts, where coal for the use of the 
steam engine is much cheaper. But this change has, in some 
instances, been caused or accelerated by the conduct of the work- 
men, in refusing a reasonable reduction of wages, or opposing the 
introduction of some kind of improved machinery or process ; so 
that, during the dispute, another spot has in great measure sup- 
plied their place in the market. Any violence used by the work- 
men against the property of their employers, and any unreasonable 
combination on their part, is almost sure thus to be injurious to 
themselves." 

These removals become of serious consequence when the facto- 
ries have been long established, because a population commensurate 
with their wants invariably grows up around them. The combi- 
nations in Nottinghamshire, of persons under the name of Luddites, 
drove a great number of lace-frames from that district, and caused 
establishments to be formed in Devonshire. We ought also to 
observe, that the effect of driving any establishment into a new 
district, where similar works have not previously existed, is not 
merely to place it out of the reach of such combinations, but, after 
a few years, the example of its success will most probably induce 
our capitalists in the new district to engage in the same manufac- 
ture : and thus, although one establishment only should be driven 
away, the workmen, through whose combination its removal is 
effected, will not merely suffer by the loss of that portion of demand 
for their labor which the factory caused ; but the value of that labor 
will itself be reduced by the competition of a new field of production. 

It is of great importance that the more intelligent amongst the 
class of workmen should examine into the correctness of these 
views ; because, without having their attention directed to them, 
the whole class may, in some instances, be led by designing per- 
sons to pursue a course, which, although plausible in appearance, 
is in reahty at variance with their own best interests. — Baiiage's 
Economy of Man. 



The Mechanical Fiddler. 

One of the most extraordinary and the best attested instances of 
enthusiasm, existing in conjunction with perseverance, is related 

of the founder of the F family. This man, who was a fiddler 

living near Stourbridge, was often witness of the immense laboi 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 403 

and loss of time caused by dividing the rods of iron necessary in 
the process of making nails. The discovery of the process called 
splitting, in v^^orks called splitting-mills, vv^as first made in Sweden ; 
and the consequences of this advance in art were most disastrous 

to the manufacturers of iron about Stourbridge. F the fiddler 

was shortly missed from his accustomed rounds, and was not again 
seen for many years. He had mentally resolved to ascertain by 
what means the process of splitting bars of iron was accomplish- 
ed ; and without communicating his intention to a single human 
being, he proceeded to Hull, and, without funds, worked his pas- 
sage to the Swedish iron port. Arrived in Sweden, he begged 
and fddled his way to the iron foundries, where he, after a time, 
became a universal favorite with the workmen ; and from the ap- 
parent entire absence of intelligence, or any thing like ultimate 
object, he was received into the works, to every part of which he 
had access. He took the advantage thus offered, and, having 
stored his memory with observations, and all the combinations, he 
disappeared from amongst his kind friends as he had appeared, no 
one knew whence or whither. 

On his return to England, he communicated his voyage and its 
result to Mr. Knight and another person in the neighborhood, with 
whom he was associated, and by whom the necessary buildings 
were erected, and machineiy provided. When at length every 
thing was prepared, it was found that the machinery would not act ; 
at all events it did not answer the sole end of its erection — it would 
not split the bar of iron. F disappeared again ; it was con- 
cluded that shame and mortification at his failure had driven him 
away forever. Not so ; again, though somewhat more speedily, 
he found his way to the Swedish iron-works, where he was receiv- 
ed most joyfully, and, to make sure of" their fiddler, he was lodged 
in the splitting-mill itself Here was the very aim and end of his 
life attained, beyond his utmost hope. He examined the works, 
and very soon discovered the cause of his failure. He now made 
drawings, or rude tracings ; and having abided an ample time to 
verify his observations, and to impress them clearly and vividly on 
his mind, he made his way to the port, and once more returned to 
England. This time he was completely successful, and by the 
results of his experience enriched himself and greatly benefited 
his countrymen, who doubtless came to the conclusion that he at 
least addled to some purpose. 



404 ANECDOTES, 

Corn Mills in Ancient Times. 

Till about fifty years before the commencement of the Christian 
era, the ancients had no large mills forced round by water, but 
ground their corn in small mills of one stone rolling rapidly round 
upon another, and impelled by the hands of women-servants or 
slaves. The stones used for that purpose were circular, portable, 
nicely wrought, and adapted for turning ; the upper one being the 
smaller of the two, with an iron or wooden handle fixed into its 
edge ; the lower being larger, and probably harder — at least if we 
may infer from an expression in the book of Job, " hard as a piece 
of the nether millstone." An excellent quarry in the neighbor, 
hood of Babylon (we are informed by Xenophon) supplied all the 
countries of the East with such millstones. 

That women, or maid-servants, generally performed this piece 
of domestic labor, we are assured by the very first mention made 
of grinding with mills, that in Exodus, (xi. 5,) " All the first-born 
in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that 
sitteth upon the throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant 
that is behind the mill ;" in which passage, from the contrasted 
states of dignity and meanness, it is plain, that, in Egypt at least, 
the drudgery of grinding was deemed the lowest possible. Two 
women were generally employed ; they sat fronting each other, 
with the millstone between them, which was kept whirling by 
alternate impulsions of the hand. Slaves taken in war were fre- 
quently doomed to undergo this tedious penance ; Samson " did 
grind in the prison-house of the Philistines ;" the Hebrews, in their 
Babylonish captivity, were subjected to its degradation ; " they 
took our young men to grind," says Jeremiah in his Lamentations ; 
and Isaiah, in his prophetic declaration to Babylon of her impend- 
ing state of captivity, bids her, as a proper badge of her servile 
subjection, " take millstones and grind meal." The piece of a 
millstone whereby Abimelech was slain, when he was attacking 
the; tower of Thebez, was cast upon his head by a "certain wo- 
man," whom it befitted to wield as a weapon, the humble utensil 
of her daily occupation. 

Portable millstones of this description must have been brought 
by the children of Israel from Egypt, and carried with them all 
the way through the wilderness, as we read in Numbers, (xi. 8,) 
that " the people ground the manna in mills." As by the laws of 
Athens no creditor was allowed to distrain the plough and other 
simple and necessary utensils of rustic labor, so by the laws of 
Moses, (Deut. xxiv. 6,) it was permitted to no man " to take the 
nether or the upper millstone to pledge" — in other words, to take 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 405 

them by distrain* in lieu of any debt. The morning, before or at 
sunrise, was the time allotted in the domestic arrangement for 
grinding for the family as much flour ' as was needful for the con- 
sumption of the day. 

An interesting particular connected with the practice of noctur. 
nal grinding, may be quoted from the military history of Julian. 
His forces, when besieging some strong place on the Tigris, had 
wrought a deep mine under the walls and buildings to the very 
centre of the city, when his soldiers, on digging the earth upwards 
to the surface, found themselves after midnight in the middle of the 
house of a poor woman, who was busily employed in grinding corn 
for flour-bread, and who, doubtless, was not a little astonished at 
the emersion into her solitary chamber of such extraordinary vi- 
sitants. 

The operation of grinding by the females was always accompa- 
nied, as it still is in the East, with melodious and shrill-trilled dit- 
ties, sung in chorus, which sounded strong enough to be heard out 
of doors throughout aU the lanes and streets ; the pleasant jolity 
of which, associated as it was with the just apparent brightness of 
dawn, and announcing the approaching activity of village or city 
population just awaking to their daily labor, gave to this simple 
domestic operation a peculiar character of happiness, peaceful in- 
dustry, and tranquillity. The Hebrew writers, accordingly, always 
connect the sound of the morning mill with prosperity and repose, 
couphng it, in its degree of vivacity, with " the voice of harpers 
and musicians ;" its cessation they associate with the presence of 
melancholy, trouble, and adversity. Thus, when the wise man 
wishes to describe the dreaiy melancholy of old age, he expresses 
it by the " sound of the grinding" being " low." " I will take 
away the sound of the millstone," says Jeremiah, to express utter 
desolation. We are informed by travellers that such lively chants 
are still sung by females in Persia and Africa when engaged in 
grinding. The heart of Mungo Park, in the Afric desert, was 
softened and reminded of his home by the chant of the wottien 
grinding. The Grecian women, also, had a ditty of this kind, 
called the Song of the Mill. It began, " Grind, mill, grind ; even 
Pittacus king of Mitylene doth grind." For it seems that Pitta- 
cus, king, or tyrant, as he was called, of Mitylene, and reckoned 
also one of the seven wise men of Greece, had been accustomed, 
in moments of unoccupied languor, to resort for amusement to the 
grinding-mill, that being, as he called it, his best gymnasium, or 
pleasantest exercise in smallest space. As sometimes for health, 
so sometimes also for obtaining an honest livehhood, was grinding 
resorted to by persons above the common order. There is a story 

18 



4M ANECDOTES, 

told of the two philosophers Menedemus and Asclepiades, who, 
when young men, and students of wisdom under one of the Athe- 
nian masters, were enabled to maintain a respectable personal ap- 
pearance by grinding every night at the mill for two drachmse, or 
about Is. 4d. a night ; on hearing which signal proof of industry, 
the Areopagites, in admiration of their love of wisdom and frugal- 
ity, presented them with an honorary donation of two hundred 
drachmiBe, to support them during their time of study. 

The Romans seem to have invented a larger class of mills, dri- 
ven by mules, asses, or oxen, (called molse jumentarise,) and to 
have introduced them during the course of their conquests in the 
East. The stones employed in these mills were of a larger size, 
and much more operose in their revolution, and effective in their 
labor. Allusion is made to one of these larger millstones in the 
passage of the Gospel, (Luke xvii. 2,) vphere it is said, " it were 
better that a millstone were hanged about his neck," the larger 
millstone impelled by asses being there understood in the original ; 
it is to be regretted that the emphasis given to the sentiment by 
the distinctive word implying the larger stone, is lost in our trans- 
lation. 

The first corn-mill driven by water was invented and set up by 
Mithridates, king of Cappadocia, the most talented, studious, and 
ingenious prince of any age or country. It was set up in the neigh- 
borhood of his capital or palace, about seventy years before the 
commencement of the Christian era. It was probably from this 
favorable circumstance of the invention of the water-mill, and the 
facility thereby afforded to the Cappadocian people for making 
cheap, good, and abundant fiour, that the Cappadocian bakers ob- 
tained high celebrity, and were much in demand for two or three 
centuries posterior to the invention of mills, throughout all the Ro- 
man world. Coincident with the era of the inventor, as mention, 
ed by Strabo, is the date of the Greek epigram on water-mills by 
Antipater, a poet of Syria or Asia Minor, who is supposed to have 
lived sixty or eighty years before Christ. This epigram may be 
thus translated : — 

Ye maids, who toil'd so faithful at the mill, 

Now cease from work, and from these toils be still ; 

Sleep now till dawn, and let the birds with glee 

Sing to the ruddy morn on bush and tree ; 

For what your hands performed so long, so true, 

Ceres has charg'd the water-nymphs to do ; 

They come, the limpid sisters, to her call, 

And on the wheel with dashing fury fall ; 

Impel the axle with a whirling sound, 

And make the massy millstone reel around, 

And bring the floury heaps luxuriant to the ground. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 407 

The greater convenience and expedition in working of these 
water-mills soon made them be spread over the world. In about 
twenty or thirty years after their invention, one was set up on the 
Tiber. They must have been not uncommon in Italy in the age 
of Vitruvius, for he gives a description of them. Yet it is rather 
surprising that Pliny, whose eye nothing of art or nature escapes, 
has taken no notice of them. In the age of Theodosius, (about 
380 A. D.,) the pubhc corn-mills of the city of Rome seem to have 
been wrought principally or altogether by slaves. According to an 
historian, these corn-mills were all placed in the subterranean 
apartments or cellars of an immense pile of buildings used by the 
Roman bakers as a public bakehouse. fcHe tells a strange stoiy 
of this Roman pistrinum. It was built, it seems, on an immense 
scale, with grinding dungeons below, and shops or taverns along 
its front and sides, where were sold the loaves, and wherein were 
at the same time exhibited other tavern temptations to seduce the 
simple ones and the strangers. Into these trap-taverns people went 
without suspicion ; but no sooner were some of them wheedled in, 
than, by means of some mechanical pitfalls made in the floor, they 
were precipitated into the grinding-vault, and found themselves 
irrecoverably caught and imprisoned. There they were compelled 
to work as drudges of the mill, their friends all the while believing 
them dead. At last the insidious bakehouse was exposed and 
destroyed by a soldier of Theodosius. He, too, was plunged into 
the subterranean mill-house, but fortunately having his sword at his 
side, he drew it, and by the terror of his menaces, and his layings- 
about, he forced the people to let him go. The insidious work- 
house was exposed, and, by the order of the emperor, demolished 
to its foundations. At a later period, Rome was supplied with 
meal from mills placed upon boats on the Tiber, the rush of the 
water driving the wheels. 

Mills on a large scale have been for ages established in all Eu- 
ropean and other countries in which the arts have been improved. 
In some of the remote parts of the British islands, however, the 
practice of bruising corn in a mortar, or of grinding it in a small 
hand-mill, is not yet entirely disused. In the Highlands of Scot- 
land, these rudely fashioned hand-mills are called querns ; and the 
primeval practice of singing while working at them is still kept up. 
Pennant, in his Tour through Scotland in 1769, gives drawings of 
the Highland querns. Mr. Robert Jamieson, in a work entitled 
" Popular Ballads and Songs," of which he was editor, relates the 
following interesting anecdote, illustrative of the condition of life in 
which the quern is still, or was lately, in use : — 

" On a very hot day in the beginning of autumn, the author, 



408 ANECDOTES, 

when a stripling, was travelling afoot over the mountains of Loch 
aber, from Fort Augustus to Inverness ; and when he came to the 
house where he was to have breakfasted, there was no person at I 
home, nor was there any place where refreshment was to be had 
nearer than Duris, which is eighteen miles from Fort Augustus. 
With this disagreeable prospect, he proceeded about three miles 
farther, and turned aside to the first cottage he saw, where he found 
a hale-looking, lively, tidy, little, middle-aged woman, spinning 
wool, with a pot on the fire, and some greens ready to be put into 
it. She understood no English, and his Gaelic was then by no 
means good, though he spoke it well enough to be intelligible. She 
informed him that she had nothing in the house that could be eaten, 
except cheese, a little sour cream, and some whiskey. On being 
asked, rather sharply, how she could dress the greens without meal, 
she good-humoredly told him that there was plenty of meal in the 
croft, pointing to some unreaped barley that stood dead-ripe and 
dry before the door; and if he could wait half an hour, he should 
have brose and butter, bread and cheese, bread and milk, or any 
thing else that he chose. To this he most readily assented, as 
well on account of the singularity of the proposal, as of the necessity 
of the time ; and the good dame set with all possible expedition 
about her arduous undertaking. She first of all brought him some 
cream in a bottle, telling him, ' He that will not work, neither shall 
he eat ;'' if he wished for butter, he must shake that bottle with 
all his might, and sing to it like a mavis all the tirrie ; for unless 
he sang to it, no butter would come. She then went to the croft, 
cut down some barley, burnt the straw to dry the grain, rubbed 
the grain between her hands, and threw it up before the wind to 
separate it from the husks ; ground it upon a quern, sifted it, made 
a bannock of the meal, set it up to bake before the fire ; lastly, 
went to milk her cow, that was reposing during the heat of the 
day, and eating some outside cabbage leaves ' ayont the hallan.' She 
sang like a lark the whole time, varying the strain according to 
the employment to which it was adapted. In the mean while, a hen 
cackled under the eaves of the cottage ; two new-laid eggs were 
immediately plunged into the boiling pot, and in less than half an 
hour, the poor, starving, faint, and way-worn minstrel, with won- 
der and delight sat down to a repast, that, under such circumstan- 
ces, would have been a feast for a prince." 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 409 

The Obelisk of Luxor. 

We fancy there are few of our readers but have read descrip- 
tions and seen drawings or prints of the two remarkable obelisks 
called Cleopatra's Needles, near Alexandria, on the coast of 
Egypt. Of these only one is erect ; the other has been for many 
years prostrate and half buried in sand. 

Among the treasures of antiquity found in the interior of Egypt, 
and particularly in the Thebaid, were, till very lately, two granite 
columns of precisely the same character as Cleopatra's Needles. 
Of these, one remains on the desolate spot ; the other, with great 
labor and expense, has been transported to the flourishing capital 
of France. 

When the French army, in their attempt on Egypt, penetrated 
as far as Thebes, they were, almost to a man, overpowered by 
the majesty of the ancient monuments they saw before them ; and 
Bonaparte is then said to have conceived the idea of removing at 
least one of the obelisks to Paris. But reverses and defeat follow- 
ed. The French were forced to abandon Egypt ; and the English 
remaining masters of the seas, effectually prevented any such im- 
portation into France. 

The project of Bonaparte had the sort of classical precedent he 
so much admired. Roman conquerors and Roman emperors had 
successively enriched the capital of the world with the monuments 
of subdued nations, and with the spoils of art from Sicily, Greece, 
and Egypt. Among these, the Emperor Augustus ordered two 
Egyptian obelisks, also of the same character as Cleopatra's 
Needles, to be brought to Rome. To this end an immense vessel 
of a peculiar construction was built ; and when, after a tedious 
and difficult voyage, it reached the Tiber with its freight, one of 
the columns was placed in the Grand Circus, and the other in the 
Campus Martius, at Rome. Caligula adorned Rome with a third 
Egyptian obelisk, obtained in the same manner. 

The Emperor Constantine, still more ambitious of these costly 
foreign ornaments, resolved to decorate his new-founded capital 
of Constantinople with the largest of all the obelisks that stood 
on the ruins of Thebes. He succeeded in having it conveyed as 
far as Alexandria ; but, dying at the time, its destination was 
changed, and an enormous raft, managed by 300 rowers, trans- 
ported the granite obelisk from Alexandria to Rome. The diffi- 
culties encountered by the large, flat, awkward vessel do not 
appear to have occurred during the passage across the Mediter- 
ranean, which was, no doubt, effected during the fine, settled 
summer season, when that sea is often, for weeks together, almost 



410 ANECDOTES, 

as calm as a small fresh-water lake ; but they presented them- 
selves at the passage of the mouth of the Tiber, and in the shal- 
lows of that river. When all these obstacles were overcome, il, 
required the labor of thousands of men to set up the obelisk upon 
its base at Rome. 

The Emperor Theodosius, at last, succeeding in bringing an | 
obelisk from Egypt to Constantinople, erected it in the Hippo- | 
drome. Though this was of an inferior size, (being rather under | 
than over fifty feet,) it is recorded that it required thirty-two days'" •; 
labor, and the most complicated contrivances of mechanics to set .'i 
it upright. j 

The Constantinopolitan obelisk still stands where it was first 
erected by the emperor ; but those of Rome have been removed I 
by the Popes. In all, there are twelve ancient obelisks erect in \ 
the modern city of Rome. ^ 

Thirty years after Bonaparte's first conception of the idea, the « 
French government, then under Charles X., having obtained the I 
consent of the pasha of Egypt, determined that one of the obelisks ,' 
of Luxor should be brought to Paris. " The difficulties of doing ; 
this," says M. Delaborde, " were great. In the first place it was ! 
necessary to build a vessel which should be large enough to con- ;' 
tain the monument, — deep enough to stand the sea, — and, at the j 
same time, draw so little water as to be able to ascend and de- j 
scend such rivers as the Nile and the Seine." 

In the month of February, 1831, when the crown of France 
had passed into the hands of Louis Philippe, a vessel, built as 
nearly as could be on the necessary principles, was finished and 
equipped at Toulon. This vessel, which for the sake of lightness 
was chiefly made of fir and other white wood, was named the 
" Louxor." The crew consisted of 120 seamen, under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant Verninac of the French royal navy ; and 
there went, besides, sixteen mechanics of different professions, 
and a master to direct the works, under the superintendence of j 
M. Lebas, formerly a pupil of the Polytechnic School, and now a ' 
naval engineer. 1 

M. J. P. Angelina accompanied the expedition in quality of ' 
surgeon-major ; and to a volume which this gentleman has re- j 
cently published at Paris we are indebted for an account of its j 
proceedings. •; 

On the 15th of April, 1831, (which we should have thought two ! 
months too early in the season,) the " Louxor" sailed from Toulon. | 
Some rather violent winds and heavy seas proved that a vessel so ■ 
built was not very seaworthy, and appear to have somewhat ■ 
frightened the "Chirurgien-Major ;"" but they arrived without any] 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 411 

serious - accident in the port of Alexandria on the 3d of May. 
After staying forty-two days at Alexandria, the expedition sailed 
again on the 15th of June for the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, which 
they entered on the following day, though not without danger 
from the sand-bank which the river has deposited there. At 
Rosetta they remained some days ; and on the 20th of June, M. 
Lebas, the engineer, two officers, and a few of the sailors and 
workmen, leaving the " Louxor" to make her way up the river 
slowly, embarked in common Nile-boats for Thebes, carrying with 
them the tools and materials necessary for the removal of the 
obelisk. On the 7th of July, when the waters of the Nile had 
risen considerably, the " Louxor" sailed from Rosetta ; on the 
13lh she reached Boulak, the port of Grand Cairo, where she 
remained until the 19th ; and she did not arrive at Thebes until 
the 14th of August, which was two months after her departure 
from Alexandria. 

The Turks and Arabs were astonished at seeing so large a 
vessel on the Nile, and frequently predicted she would not accom- 
plish the whole voyage. The difficulties encountered in so doing 
were, indeed, very serious ; m spite of the peculiar build and 
material, the vessel grounded and struck fast in the sand several 
times ; at other times a contrary wind, joined to the current, which 
was of course contrary all the way up, obliged them to lie at 
anchor for days ; and the greatest part of the ascent of the river 
was effected by towing, which exhausting work seems to have 
been performed, partly by the French sailors, and partly by such 
Arabs and Fellahs as they could hire for the occasion. An ex- 
cessive heat rendered this fatigue still more insupportable. Fahren- 
heit's thermometer marked from 98* to 102° in the shade, and 
ascended to 144°, and even to 160° in the sun. Several of the 
sailors were seized with dysentery, and the quantity of sand blown 
about by the wind, and the glaring reflection of the burning sun, 
afflicted others with painful ophthalmia. The sand must have 
been particularly distressing : one day the wind raised it and 
rolled it onward in such volume as, at intervals, to obscure the 
light of the sun. After they had felicitated themselves on the fact 
that the plague was not in the country, they were struck with 
alarm on the 29th of August, by learning that the cholera morbus 
had broken out most violently at Cairo. On the 11th of Septem- 
ber the same mysterious disease declared itself on the plain of 
Thebes, with the natives of which the French were obliged to 
have frequent communications. In a very short time fifteen of 
the sailors, according to our author, the surgeon, caught the con- 
tagion, but every one recovered under his care and skill. At the 



412 ANECDOTES, 

same time, however, (panic no doubt increasing the disposition to 
disease,) no fewer than forty-eight men were laid up with dysen- 
tery, which proved fatal to two of them. 

In the midst of these calamities and dangers, the French sailors 
persevered in preparing the operations relative to the object of 
the expedition. One of the fii'st cares of M. Lebas, the engineer, 
on his arriving on the plain of Thebes, was to erect, near to the 
obelisks and not far from the village of Luxor, proper wooden 
barracks, — sheds and tents to lodge the officers, sailors, and work- 
men, on shore. He also built an oven to bake them bread, and 
magazines in which to secure their provisions, and the sails, cables, 
&c., of the vessel. The now desolate site on which the city of 
the Hundred Gates, the vast, the populous, and the wealthy Thebes, 
once stood, offered them no resources, nor a single comfort of 
civilized life. But French soldiers and sailors are happily, and, 
we may say, honorably distinguished, by the facility with which 
they adapt themselves to circumstances, and turn their hands to 
whatever can add to their comfort and well-being. The sailors on 
this expedition, during their hours of repose from more severe 
labors, carefully prepared and dug up pieces of ground for kitchen- 
gardens. They cultivated bread-melons and water-melons, let- 
tuces, and other vegetables. They even planted some trees, 
which thrived very well ; and, in short, they made their place of 
temporary residence a little paradise as compared with the 
wretched huts and neglected fields of the oppressed natives. 

It was the smaller of the two obelisks the French had to re- 
move. But this smaller column of hard, heavy granite was about 
ninety or a hundred ,feet in height, and was calculated to weigh 
upwards of two hundred and forty tons. It stood, moreover, at 
the distance of about one thousand two hundred feet from the 
Nile, and the intervening space presented many difficulties. 

M. Lebas, the engineer, commenced by making an inclined 
plane, extending from the base of the obelisk to the edge of the 
river. This work occupied nearly all the French sailors and 
about seven hundred Arabs during three months, for they were 
obliged to cut through two hills of ancient remains and rubbish, 
to demolish half of the poor villages which lay in their way, and 
to beat, equalize, and render firm the uneven, loose and crumbling 
soil. This done, the engineer proceeded to make the ship ready 
for the reception of the obelisk. The vessel had been left aground 
by the periodical fall of the waters of the Nile, and matters had 
been so managed that she lay imbedded in the sand, with her fig- 
ure-head pointing dii-ectly towards the temple and the granite col- 
umn. The engineer taking care not to touch the keel, sawed oi*" 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 413 

a transverse and complete section of the front of the ship ; in 
short, he cut away her bows, which were raised, and kept suspend- 
ed above tlie place they properly occupied by means of pulleys and 
some strong spars, which crossed each other above the vessel. 

The ship, thus opened, presented in front a large mouth to re- 
ceive its cargo, which was to reach the very lip of that mouth or 
opening, by sliding down the inclined plane. When this section 
of the ship was effected, they took care that she should lie equally 
on her keel ; and where the sand or mud was weak, or had fallen 
away from the vessel, they supplied proper supports and props to 
prevent the great weight of the column from breaking her back. 
The preparations for bringing the obelisk safely down to the ground 
lasted from the 11th of July to the 31st of October, when it was 
laid horizontally on its side. 

The rose-colored granite of Syene, (the material of these re- 
markable works of ancient art,) though exceedingly hard, is rather 
brittle. By coming in contact with other substances, and by being 
impelled along the incUned plane, the beautiful hieroglyphics sculp- 
tured on its surface might have been defaced, and the obelisk 
might have suffered other injuries. To prevent these, M. Lebas 
encased it, from its summit to its base, in strong thick wooden 
sheathings, which were well secured to the column by means of 
hoops. The western face of this covering, which was that upon 
which the obelisk was to slide down the inclined plane, was ren- 
dered smooth, and was well rubbed with grease to make it run 
the easier. 

The mechanical contrivance to lower the column, which was by 
far the most critical part of these operations, is described as hav- 
ing been very simple. A cable of immense strength was attached 
to a strong anchor deeply sunk in the earth, and well secured at 
some distance from the monument. This cable was carried for- 
ward and made fast to the top of the obelisk, and then descending 
in an acute angle in the rear of the obelisk, the cable was retained 
in an opposite direction to the anchor by means of an enormous 
beam of wood, and by a series of pulleys and capstans. The 
column had been perfectly cleared from the sand and earth round 
its base, and walls of a certain height erected to keep it in the 
proper line of descent. Other works at its base prevented the 
column from sliding backwards in its descent, and a strong bed 
made of oak, and immediately connected with the inclined plane, 
was ready to receive it, and pass it to the plane when it reached 
a certain low angle of declination. 

To move so lofty and narrow an object from its centre of gravity 
was no difficult task, — but then came the moment of intense 

18* 



414 ANECDOTES. 

anxiety ! The whole of the enormous weight bore upon the 
cable, the cordage, and machinery, which quivered and cracked 
in all their parts. Their tenacity, however, was equal to the 
strain, and so ingeniously were the mechanical powers applied, 
that eight men in the rear of the descending column were suffi- 
cient to accelerate or retard its descent. For two minutes the 
obelisk was suspended at an angle of 30°, — but, finally, it sank 
majestically and in perfect safety to the bed of the inclined 
plane. 

On the following day the much less difficult task of getting the 
obelisk on board the ship was performed. It only occupied an 
hour and a half to drag the column down the inclined plane, and 
(through the open mouth in front) into the hold of the vessel. 
The section of the suspended bows was then lowered to the proper 
place, and readjusted and secured as firmly as ever by the car- 
penters and other workmen. So nicely was this important part 
of the ship sliced off", and then put to again, that the mutilation 
was scarcely perceptible. 

The obelisk, as we have seen, was embarked on the 1st of 
November, 1831, but it was not until the 18th of August, 1832, 
that the annual rise of the Nile afforded sufficient water to float 
their long-stranded ship. At last, however, to their infinite joy, 
they were ordered to prepare every thing for the voyage home- 
wards. As soon as this was done, sixty Arabs were engaged to 
assist in getting them down the river, (a distance of one hundred 
and eighty leagues,) and the Louxor set sail. 

After thirty-six days of painful navigation, but without meeting 
with any serious accident, they reached Rosetta ; and there they were 
obliged to stop, because the sand-bank off" that mouth of the Nile 
had accumulated to such a degree, that, with its present cargo, 
the vessel could not clear it. Fortunately, however, on the 30th 
of December, a violent hurricane dissipated part of this sand- 
bank ; and, on the 1st of January, 1833, at ten o'clock in the 
morning, the Louxor shot safely out of the Nile, and at nine o'clock 
on the following morning came to a secure anchorage in the old 
harbor of Alexandria. 

Here they awaited the return of the fine season for navigating 
the Mediterranean ; and the Sphynx (a French man-of-war) taking 
the Louxor in tow, they sailed from Alexandria on the 1st of April. 
On the 2d, a storm commenced, which kept the Louxor in immi- 
nent danger for two whole days. On the 6th, this storm abated ; 
but the wind continued contrary, and soon announced a fresh 
tempest. They had just time to run for shelter into the bay of 
Marmara when the storm became more furious than ever. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 415 

On the 13th of April they again weighed anchor, and shaped 
their course for Malta ; but a violent contrary wind drove them 
back as far as the Greek island of Milo, where they were detained 
two days. Sailing, however, on the 17th, they reached Navarino 
on the 18th, and the port of Corfu, where, they say, they were 
kindly received by Lord Nugent and the British, on the 23d of 
April. Between Corfu and Cape Spartivento, heavy seas and 
high winds caused the Louxor to labor and strain exceedingly. 
As soon, however, as they reached the coast of Italy, the sea be- 
came calm, and a light breeze carried them forward, at the rate 
of four knots an hour, to Toulon, where they anchored during the 
evening of the 11th of May. 

They had now reached the port whence they had departed, but 
their voyage was not yet finished. There is no carriage by water, 
or by any other commodious means, for so heavy and cumbrous 
a mass as an Egyptian obehsk, from Toulon to Paris, (a distance 
of above four hundred and fifty miles.) To meet this difficulty 
they must descend the rest of the Mediterranean, pass nearly the 
whole of the southern coast of France, and all the south of Spain — 
sail through the Straits of Gibraltar, and traverse part of the 
Atlantic, as far as the mouth of the Seine, which river afibrds a 
communication between the French capital and the ocean. 

Accordingly, on the 22d of June, they sailed from Toulon, the 
Louxor being again taken in tow by the Sphynx man-of-war ; and, 
after experiencing some stormy weather, finally reached Cherbourg 
on the 5th of August, 1833. The whole distance performed in 
this voyage was upwards of fourteen hundred leagues. 

As the royal family of France was expected at Cherbourg by 
the 31st of August, the authorities detained the Louxor there. 
On the 2d of September, King Louis Philippe paid a visit to the 
vessel, and warmly expressed his satisfaction to the officers and 
crew. He was the first to inform M. Verninac, the commander, 
that he was promoted to the rank of captain of a sloop-of-war. 
On the following day, the king distributed decorations of the legion 
of honor to the officers, and entertained them at dinner. 

The Louxor, again towed by the Sphynx, left Cherbourg on the 
12th of September, and safely reached Havre de Grace, at the 
mouth of the Seine. Here her old companion, the Sphynx, which 
drew too much water to be able to ascend the river, left her, and 
she was taken in tow by the Heva steamboat. To conclude with 
the words of our author : " At six o''clock (on the 13th) our vessel 
left the sea for ever, and entered the Seine. By noon we had 
cleared all the banks and impediments of the lower part of the 
river ; and, on the 14th of September, at noon, we arrived at 



416 ANECDOTES, 

Rouen, where the Louxor was made fast before the quay d'Har- 
court. Here we must remain until the autumnal rains raise the 
waters of the Seine, and permit us to transport to Paris this 
pyramid, — the object of our expedition." This event has since 
happened, and the column safely erected on its pedestal. 



American Steamers. 

The following extract from a late London work, " Stevenson's 
Engineering in North America," may not be uninteresting to most 
of our readers : — 

" The steam navigation of the United States is one of the most 
interesting subjects connected with the history of North America ; 
and it is strange that hitherto we should have received so httle 
information regarding it, especially as there is no class of works, 
in that comparatively new and still rising country, which bear 
stronger marks of long-continued exertion, successfully directed 
to the perfection of its object, than are presented by many of the 
steamboats which now navigate its rivers, bays, and lakes. 

" It would be improper to compare the pres'ent state of steam 
navigation in America with that of this country, for the nature of 
things has established a very important distinction between them. 
By far the greater number of the American steamboats ply on the 
smooth surfaces of rivers, sheltered bays, or arms of the sea, ex- 
posed neither to waves nor to wind ; whereas most of the steam- 
boats in this country go out to sea, where they encounter as bad 
weather and as heavy waves as ordinary sailing vessels. The 
consequence is, that in America a much more slender built, and a 
more delicate mould, give the requisite strength to their vessels, 
and thus a much greater speed, which essentially depends upon 
these two qualities, is generally obtained. In America, the posi- 
tion of the machinery and of the cabins, which are raised above 
the deck of the vessels, admits of powerful engines, with an enor- 
mous length of stroke being employed to propel them ; but this 
arrangement would be wholly inapplicable to the vessels navigating 
our coasts, at least to the extent to which it has been carried in 
America. 

" But perhaps the strongest proof that the American vessels are 
very differently circumstanced from those of Europe, and there- 
fore admit of a construction more favorable for the attainment of 
great speed, is the fact that they are not generally, as in Europe, 
navigated by persons possessed of a knowledge of seamanship. 
In this country steam navigation produces hardy seamen; and 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 417 

British steamers being exposed to the open sea in all weathers, 
are furnished with masts and sails, and must be worked by persons 
who, in the event of any accident happening to the machinery, are 
capable of sailing the vessel, and who must therefore be experi- 
enced seamen. The case is very different in America, where, 
with the exception of the vessels navigating the lakes, and one or 
two of those which ply on the eastern coast, there is not a steamer 
in the country which has either masts or sails, or is commanded 
by a professional seaman. These facts forcibly show the different 
state of steam navigation in America, — a state very favorable for 
the attainment of great speed, and a high degree of perfection in 
the locomotive art. 

" The early introduction of steam navigation into the countiy, 
and the rapid increase which has since taken place in the number 
of steamboats, have afforded an extensive field for the prosecution 
of valuable inquiries on this interesting subject ; and the builders 
of steamboats, by availing themselves of the opportunities held out 
to them, have been enabled to make constant accessions to their 
practical knowledge, which have gradually produced important 
improvements in the construction and action of their vessels. But 
on minutely examining the most approved American steamers, I 
found it impossible to trace any general principles which seem to 
have served as guides for their construction. Every American 
steamboat builder holds opinions of his own, which are generally 
founded, not on theoretical principles, but on deductions drawn 
from a close examination of the practical effects of the different 
arrangements and proportions adopted in the construction of dif- 
ferent steamboats, and these opinions never fail to influence, in a 
greater or less degree, the built of his vessel, and the proportions 
which her several parts are made to bear to each other. 

" The voyage between Albany and New York is now generally 
performed in ten hours, exclusive of the time lost in making stop, 
pages, being at the astonishing rate of fifteen miles per hour. 
They have effected this great increase of speed by constantly 
making experiments on the form and proportions of their engines 
and vessels, — m short, by a persevering system of trial and error, 
which is still going forward ; and the natural consequence is, that, 
even at this day, no two steamboats are ahke, and few of them 
have attained the age of six months without undergoing some ma- 
terial alterations. 

" These observations apply more particularly to the steamers 
navigating the eastern waters of the United States, where the great 
number of steamboat builders, and the rapid increase of trade, 
have produced a competition which has led to the construction of 



419 ANECDOTES, 

a class of vessels unequalled in point of speed by those of any othef 
quartei of the globe. The original construction of most of these 
vessels has, as already stated, been materially changed. The 
breadth of beam and the length of keel have in some vessels been 
increased, and in others they have been diminished. This mode 
of procedure may seem rather paradoxical ; but in America it is 
no uncommon thing to alter steamboats by cutting them through 
the middle, and eitherincreasing or diminishing their dimensions 
as the occasion may require. It is only a short time since many 
of the steamboats were furnished with false bows, by which the 
length of the deck and the rake of the cutwaters were greatly in- 
creased. On some vessels these bows still remain ; from others 
they have been removed, — subsequent experiments having led to 
the conclusion, that a perpendicular bow without any rake is best 
adapted for a fast-sailing boat. When I visited the United States 
in 1837, the ' Swallow ' held the reputation of being one of the two 
swiftest steamers which have ever navigated the American waters, 
and this vessel had received an addition of twenty-four feet to her 
original length, besides having been otherwise considerably changed 
Before these alterations were made on her, she was considered, ab 
regards speed, to be an inferior vessel. 

" The inferences to be drawn from these facts are, that the great 
experiment for the improvement of steam navigation, in which the 
Americans may be said to have been engaged for the last thirty 
years, is not completed, and the speed at which they have sue- 
ceeded in propelling their steam-vessels may yet be increased ; 
and also that, in the construction of their vessels, they have been 
governed by experience and practice alone, without attempting to 
introduce theoretical principles, in the application of which, to the 
practice of propelling vessels, by the action of paddle-wheels on the 
water, numerous difficulties have hitherto been experienced. 

" There are local circumstances, connected with the nature of 
the trade in which the steamboats are engaged, and the waters 
which they are intended to navigate, that have given rise to the 
employment of three distinct classes of vessels in American steam 
navigation, all of which I had an opportunity of sailing in and par- 
ticularly examining. 

" These steamboats may be ranged under the following classifi- 
cation : — First, those navigating the Eastern waters. This class 
includes all the vessels plying on the river Hudson, Long Island 
Sound, Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and all those which run 
to and from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charles- 
ton, Norfolk, and the other ports on the eastern coast of the coun- 
try, or what the Americans call the sea-board. Second, those 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 419 

navigating the Western waters, including all the steamers em- 
ployed on the river Mississippi and its numerous tributaries, in- 
cluding the Missouri and Ohio. Third, the steamers engaged in 
the Lake navigation. These classes of vessels vary veiy much 
in their construction, which has been modified to suit the respective 
services for which they are intended. 

" The general characteristics by which the Eastern water boats 
are distinguished, are, a small draught of water, great speed, and 
the use of condensing engines of large dimensions, having a great 
length of stroke. On the Western waters, on the other hand, the 
vessels have a greater draught of water and less speed, and are 
propelled by high-pressure engines of small size, worked by steam 
of great elasticity. The steamers on the Lakes, again, have a 
very strong built and a large draught of water, possessing in a 
greater degree the character of sea-hoats than any of those be- 
longing to the other two classes. They also differ in having masts 
and sails, with which the others are not provided. 

" The steamboats employed on the Hudson river are the first, 
belonging to the class of vessels navigating the Eastern waters, of 
which I shall make particular mention. 

" The shoals in the upper part of the river, produced by the 
Overslaugh, have rendered it necessary that the steamboats em- 
ployed in its navigation should have a small draught of water. 
The great trade of the river, and the crowds of passengers which 
are constantly travelling between New York and Albany and the 
intermediate towns, have also led to the adoption of separate hnes 
of boats, one for towing barges loaded with goods, and another 
devoted exclusively to the conveyance of passengers. The attain- 
ment of great speed naturally became an important desideratum in 
the construction of the vessels employed in carrying passengers ; 
and the success which has attended the efforts of the steamboat 
builders to produce vessels, combining swiftness with efficiency 
and perfection of workmanship, is truly wonderful, and in the 
highest degree creditable. 

" The hulls of almost all the American steamboats, especially 
those which ply on the rivers, carrying no freight excepting the 
luggage belonging to passengers, are constructed in a veiy fight 
and superficial manner. They are built perfectly flat in the bot- 
tom, and perpendicular in the sides ; a cross section in the middle 
of the vessel, having the form of a parallelogram, with its lower 
corners rounded off. This construction of hull is well adapted to 
a navigation where the depth of water is small, and the attainment 
of great speed is an object of importance, as it ensures a smaller 
draught of water, and consequently affords^ less resistance to the 



420 ANECDOTES, 

motion of the vessel than any other mould which has an equal area 
of cross section below the water line ; but vessels built in this way, 
without a deep keel, having no hold of the water, are not well 
adapted for making sea voyages, as they cannot resist the effect 
of the wind, which causes them to make lee-way. It is only the 
great breadth of the paddle-wheels and power of the engines which 
enables the American boats to move steadily through the water. 
The breadth of the paddle-wheels is, in fact, so much additional 
breadth added to the beam of the vessel ; for the reaction of the 
float-boards striking the water tends, in some measure, to counter- 
act any tendency that the vessel may have to roll, which would 
otherwise be very apt to take place in the American steamers, 
where the machinery and boilers are placed above the level of the 
deck. There is no rolling motion felt in these fast boats. The 
rectilineal motion, however, is by no means regular. Every stroke 
of the engine produces a momentary acceleration in the speed, 
giving rise *to a see-saw motion, resembling that of a row-boat, in 
which the impulse produced by every stroke of the oars is dis- 
tinctly felt. 

" In the American steamers the keel generally projects from 
two to six inches from the bottom of the hull, and is level from 
stem to stern. Its principal service, when the projection is- so 
small, consists in strengthening the hull. The deck-lines of the 
hull, in general, begin to fall in at a distance of a few feet from 
the middle of the vessel. They approach each other with a gentle 
curve, towards the stern and bow, where they meet, and are con. 
nected by the stern-post and cutwater of the vessel. The cutwater 
is generally perpendicular ; and the sides of the vessel, diverging 
from it, present a very acute angle to meet the resistance offered 
by the water. 

" The speed of the American steamboats has excited consider, 
able wonder in this country ; and some people have been inclined 
to doubt the accuracy of the statements that have frequently been 
made regarding the extraordinary feats performed by them. Fast 
sailing is a property which is not possessed by all American steam, 
boats ; but that a few of those navigating the river Hudson and 
Long Island Sound perform their voyages safely and regularly, 
at a speed which far surpasses that of any European steamer 
hitherto built, every impartial person, who has had an opportunity 
of seeing the performances of the vessels in both countries, must 
be ready to admit. 

" Some difficulties at present exist, which preclude the attain- 
ment of more than an approximation in ascertaining the maximum 
rate at which the steamboats on the Hudson are capable of being 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 421 

propelled in still water. One of these is caused by the currents 
of the flowing and ebbing tide, which are felt as far as Albany, 
and whose velocity has never been accurately ascertained ; and 
the other by the doubt that exists as to the actual distance of the 
route between New York and Albany, which has been variously 
stated at from 145 to 160 miles. 

" A veiy general opinion exists in America, in which many 
persons possessing the best means of information concur, that 
the fast steamboats in that country can be propelled at the rate 
of eighteen miles an hour in still water, a feat which it is said has 
of late been often performed. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of 
this statement, however, from personal experience or observation ; 
but this I can state positively, that the average length of time oc- 
cupied by the steamers in making the voyage from New York to 
Albany is ten hours, exclusive of time lost in making stoppages, 
which, taking the distance at 150 miles, gives fifteen miles an hour 
as their average rate of motion. 

" The ' Rochester ' and the ' Swallow ' were said to be the two 
swiftest boats running on the Hudson in 1837. I made a trip 
from Albany to New York in the ' Rochester,' on the 14th of 
June ; on which occasion, with a view to test the vessel's speed, 
I carefully noted the hour of departure from Albany, the times of 
touching at the several towns and landing places on the river, with 
the reputed distances between them, the number of minutes lost at 
each place, and the hour of arrival at New York. Thirteen stop- 
pages, which I found to average three minutes each, were made to 
land and take on board passengers. The ' Rochester ' performed 
the voyage in ten hours and forty minutes. From this, thirty-nine 
minutes must be deducted for the time lost in making the thirteen 
stoppages, which leaves ten hours and one minute as the time 
during which the vessel was actually occupied in running from 
Albany to New York. Assuming the distance between those 
places to be 150 miles, the average speed of the vessel throughout 
the trip was 14.97 miles per hour ; but even if we assume the 
distance to be only 145 miles, (the shortest distance I have ever 
heard stated,) which there is every reason to beheve is too small, 
the average rate is still 14.47 miles per hour, the difference of five 
miles in the length of the route, producing a diminution in the 
vessel's average rate of sailing of but half a mile per hour. The 
current was in the ' Rochester's ' favor during the first part of the 
voyage, but the Overslaugh shoals, and the contracted and narrow 
state of the navigable channel of the river for about thirty miles 
below Albany, checked her progress very much ; and, conse- 
quently, for the first twenty.seven miles her speed was only 12.36 



422 ANECDOTES, 

miles per hour. This was her average rate of saiHng during the 
part of her course when her speed was slowest. After the first 
thirty miles the river expanded, affording a better navigable chan- 
nel, when her speed gradually increased, and before the flowing 
tide checked her progress the vessel attained the maximum veloci*^y 
indicated by my observations, which, between two of the stopping 
places, was 16.55 miles per hour. When going at this speed, it 
is possible that she was influenced by some slight degree of cur 
rent in her favor, although it was quite imperceptible to the eye, 
as the flow of the tide appeared to produce a stagnation in the 
water of the river. At West Point we encountered the flood tide, 
as was very distinctly proved by the swinging of the vessels which 
lay at anchor in the river. After this we had an adverse current 
all the way to New York, a distance of about fifty mUes, and the 
vessel's speed during this part of the voyage averaged 14.22 miles 
an hour. About one half of the voyage was thus performed with 
a favorable current, and the other half was performed under unfa- 
vorable circumstances, owing partly to the shallowness of the water 
and the narrowness of the channel in the upper part of the river, 
and partly to an adverse tide in the lower part of it. When the 
Rochester is pitched against another vessel and going at her full 
speed, her piston makes twenty-seven double strokes per minute 
On the voyage above alluded to, however, the piston, on an aver- 
age, made about twenty-five double strokes per minute, so that the 
speed of 14.97 miles per hour, which she attained on that occasion, 
cannot be taken as her greatest ordinary rate of sailing. During 
the time, however, at which her speed was 16.55 miles per hour, 
her piston was making twenty-seven double strokes per minute, 
and at that time the vessel could not be far from having attained 
the maximum speed at which her engines are capable of propelling 
her through the water. 

" The rate of sixteen and a half miles an hour is very great, but 
perhaps not more than is due to the form of the vessels, and the 
power of the engines by which they are propelled. The Roches, 
ter draws only four feet of water, but the power of her engine is 
greater than that of any steamer in this country. The construc- 
tion of the American marine engines is so different from that 
adopted in Europe, that it is doubtful if the same rule for calcu- 
lating the power is applicable in both cases. 

" The disturbance created by the passage of the fast American 
steamers through the water is exceedingly small. The water, at 
the distance of twelve inches in front of their bows, presents a 
perfectly smooth and untroubled surface. A thin sheet of spray, 
composed of small globules of water, from a sixteenth to an 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 423 

eighteenth of an inch in diameter, rises nearly perpendicularly in 
front of the cutwater to the height of three, and, in some cases 
which I have observed, as much as four feet, and falls again into 
the water on each side of the vessel. There is little or no com. 
motion at the stern ; and the diverging waves which invariably 
follow the steamers in tliis country, and break on the banks of our 
rivers with considerable violence, are not produced by the fast 
boats in America. The waves in their wake are very shght, and, 
as far as I could judge, seem to be nearly parallel ; and the marks 
of the vessePs course cannot be traced to any great distance. 
These facts are quite in accordance with the j-esult of some of 
Mr. Russell ''s experiments, by which he was led to conclude that 
' the commotion produced in a fluid by a vessel moving through 
it, is much greater at velocities less than the velocity of the wave,^ 
(which is proportioned to the depth of the water,) ' than at veloci- 
ties which are greater than it.'' 

" The vast number of vessels on the Western waters, the pecu- 
liarity of their construction, and the singular nature of the na-sdga. 
tion in wliich they are employed, make them objects of consider- 
able interest to the traveller. We must not expect to find, how- 
ever, in that class of vessels, the same display of good workman- 
ship, and the attainment of the high velocities, which characterize 
the vessels on the Eastern waters. These qualifications may be 
very easily dispensed with, and the want of them is by no means 
the worst feature in the western navigation ; but, what is of far 
more importance, too many of the vessels are decidedly unsafe ; 
and, in addition to this, their management is intrusted to men 
whose recklessness of human life and property is equalled only by 
their ignorance and want of civilization. 

" Economy would indeed seem to be the only object wliich the 
constructors of these boats have in view, and therefore, with the 
exception of the finery which the cabins generally display, httle 
care is expended in their construction, and much of the workman- 
ship connected with them is of a most superficial and insufficient 
kind. When the crews of these frail fabrics, therefore, engage in 
brisk competition with other vessels, and urge the machinery to 
the utmost extent of its power, it is not to be wondered at that 
their exertions are often suddenly terminated by the vessel taking 
fire, and going to the bottom, or by an explosion of the steam- 
boilers. Such accidents are frequently attended with an appalHng 
loss of life, and are of so common occurrence, that they generally 
excite httle or no attention. 

" The vessels on the Western waters vary from 100 to 700 tons 
burden, and are generally of a heavy built, to enable them to carry 



424 ANECDOTES, 

goods. They have a most singular appearance, and are no lesa 
remarkable as regards their machinery. They are built flat in the 
bottom, and generally draw from six to eight feet of water. The 
hull is covered with a deck at the level of about five feet above the 
water, and below this deck is the hold, in which the heavy part of 
the cargo is carried. The whole of the machinery rests on the 
first deck ; the engines being placed near the middle of the vessel, 
and the boilers under the two smoke chimneys. The fire-doors 
open towards the bow, and the bright glare of light thrown out by 
the wood fires, along with the puffing of the steam from the escape- 
ment pipe, produc^^e a most singular effect at night, and serve the 
useful purpose of announcing the approach of the vessel when it is 
still at a great distance. The chief object in placing the boilers 
in the manner described, is to produce a strong draught in the 
fire-place. The other end of the lower deck, which is covered 
in, and occupied by the crew of the vessel and the deck passen- 
gers, generally presents a scene of filth and wretchedness that 
baffles all description. A staircase leads from the front of the 
paddle-boxes on each side of the vessel, to an upper gallery about 
three feet in breadth. This surrounds the whole after-part of the 
vessel, and is the promenade of the inhabitants of the second deck. 
Several doors lead from the gallery into the great cabin, which ex- 
tends from the funnels to within about thirty or forty feet of the 
stern of the vessel ; the aftermost space is separated from the 
great cabin by a partition, and is occupied by the ladies. The 
large cabin contains the gentlemen''s sleeping berths, and is also 
used as the dining-room. This part of the western steamers is 
often fitted up in a gorgeous style ; the berths are large, and the 
numerous windows by which the cabin is surrounded give abun. 
dance of light, and, what is of great consequence in that scorching 
climate, admit a plentiful supply of fresh air. 

" From the gallery surrounding the chief cabin, two flights of 
steps lead to the hurricane deck, which, in many of the steamers, 
is at least thirty feet above the level of the water. The wheel- 
house, in which the steersman is placed, is erected on the forepart 
of this deck, and the motion is communicated to the helm by means 
of ropes or iron rods, in the manner already described in speaking 
of the Eastern steamers. 

" The first cabin of a Mississippi steamboat is strangely con. 
trasted with the scenes of wretchedness in the lower deck, and its 
splendor serves in some measure to distract the attention of its 
unthinking inmates from the dangers which lie below them. But 
no one who is at all acquainted with the steam engine can examine 
the machinery of one of those vessels, and the manner in which i» 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 425 

is managed, without shuddering at the idea of the great risk to 
which all on board are at every moment exposed. 

" Explosions are of very frequent occurrence ; and, with a view 
to cure this evil, several attempts have, at different periods, been 
made to introduce low-pressure engines on the Western waters, 
but the cheapness of high-pressure engines, and the great simpli- 
city of their parts, which require comparatively little fine finishing 
and good fitting, certainly afford reasons for preferring them to 
low-pressure engines, in a part of the country where good work- 
men are scarce, and where the value of labor and materials is 
very great. It must also be recollected, that a condensing or low- 
pressure engine takes up a great deal more space than one con- 
structed on the high-pressure principle. I do not apprehend, how- 
ever, that the number of accidents would be diminished by the 
simple adoption of low-pressure boilers, without the strict enforce- 
ment of judicious regulations ; and if those regulations were prop- 
erly applied to high-pressure boilers, they would not fail to render 
them, perhaps, quite as safe as those boilers which are generally 
made for engines working on the low-pressure principle. One 
very obvious improvement on the present hazardous state of the 
Mississippi navigation, would be the enactment of a law that the 
pressure of the steam should in no case exceed, perhaps, fifty 
pounds on the square inch. 

" The steamers make many stoppages to take in goods and 
passengers, and also supplies of wood for fuel. The liberty which 
they take with their vessels on these occasions is somewhat 
amusing, and not a little hazardous. I had a good example of this 
on board of a large vessel called the Ontario. She was sheered 
close inshore among stones and stumps of trees, where she lay for 
some hours taking in goods. The additional weight increased her 
draught of water, and caused her to heel a good deal ; and when 
her engines were put in motion, she actually crawled into the deep 
water on her paddle-wheels. The steam had been got up to an 
enormous pressure to enable her to get off, and the volumes of 
steam discharged from the escapement pipe at every half stroke 
of the piston made a sharp sound almost like the discharge of fire- 
arms, while every timber in the vessel seemed to tremble, and the 
whole structure actually groaned under the shocks. 

" During these stoppages, it is necessary to keep up a proper 
supply of water to prevent explosion ; and the manner in which 
this is effected on the Mississippi is very simple. The paddle- 
wheel axle is so constructed, that the portions of it projecting over 
the hull of the vessel to which the wheels are fixed can be thrown 
out of gear at pleasure by means ,of a clutch on each side of the 



426 ANECDOTES, 

vessel, which slides on the intermediate part of the axle, and is 
acted on by a lever. When the vessel is stopped, the paddle- 
wheels are simply thrown out of gear, and the engine continues 
to work. The necessary supply of water is thus pumped into the 
boiler during the whole time that the vessel may be at rest ; and 
when she is required to get under weigh, the wheels are again 
thrown into gear, and revolve with the paddle-wheel shaft. The 
fly-wheel is useful in regulating the motion of the engine, which 
otherwise might be apt to suffer damage from the increase and 
diminution in the resistance offered to the motion of the pistons, 
by suddenly throwing the paddle-wheels into and out of gear. The 
water for the supply of the engine is first pumped into a heater, 
in which its temperature is raised, and is then injected into the 
boiler. 

" I saw several vessels on the Ohio which were propelled by 
one large paddle-wheel placed at the stern of the vessel, but it is 
doubtful whether this arrangement is advantageous, as the action 
of the paddle-wheel, when placed in that situation, must be im- 
peded by the float-boards impmging on water which has been dis- 
turbed by the passage of the vessel through it. 

" The third class of vessels to which I have alluded, are those 
which navigate the lakes and the river St. Lawrence. They differ 
very materially from those I have already described, being more 
like the steamers of this country, both in their construction and 
appearance. Steamboats were first used on the St. Lawrence in 
1812, and it is probable that they were also introduced on the 
lakes about the same time. The lake steamers are strongly built 
vessels, furnished with masts and sails, and propelled by powerful 
engines, some of which act on the high-pressure and some on the 
low-pressure principle." 



Simple Origin of Important Discoveries. 

It is certain, says Pliny, that the most valuable discoveries have 
found their orign in the most trivial accidents. As some merchants 
were carrying nitre, they stopped near a river which issues from 
Mount Carmel, and not happening to find stones for resting their 
kettles, they substituted in their place some pieces of nitre, which 
the fire gradually dissolving, mixed with the sand, and occasioned 
a transparent matter to flow, which, in fact, was nothing else but 
glass. 

It is said that the use of telescopes was first discovered by one 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 427 

Hansen, a spectacle-maker, at Middleburgh, in Holland, whose 
children playing in the shop, casually placed a convex and con- 
cave glass in such a manner, that, by looking through them at the 
weathercock, they observed it appeared much larger and nearer 
than usual, and, by their expressions of surprise, excited the at- 
tention of their father, who soon obtained great credit for this use- 
ful discovery. 

Heylin, in his cosmography, tells us that the art of steering was 
discovered by a man of the name of Typhis, who took his hints 
for making both the rudder and helm from seeing a kite, in flyings 
guide her whole body by her tail. 



Invention of the Safety Lamp. 

This lamp, by means of which hundreds of Hves have been pre- 
served, was invented in the autumn of 1815. Sir Humphry Davy, 
the inventor, was led to the consideration of this subject, by an 
application from Dr. Gray, now Bishop of Bristol, the chairman 
of a society established in 1813, at Bishop- Wearmouth, to consider 
and promote the means of preventing accidents by fire in coal-pits. 
Being then in Scotland, he visited the mines on his return south- 
ward, and was supplied with specimens of fire-damp, which, on 
reaching London, he proceeded to examine and analyze. He soon 
discovered that the carburetted hydrogen gas, called fire-damp by 
the miners, would not explode when mixed with less than six, or 
more than fourteen, times its volume of air ; and further, that the 
explosive mixture could not be fired in tubes of small diameters 
and proportionate lengths. Gradually diminishing these, he arrived 
at the conclusion that a tissue of wire in which the meshes do not 
exceed a certain small diameter, which may be considered as the 
ultimate limit of a series of such tubes, is impervious to the inflamed 
air ; and that a lamp covered with such tissue may be used with 
perfect safety, even in an explosive mixture which takes fire and 
burns within the cage, securely cut off" from the power of doing 
harm. Thus, when the atmosphere is so impure that the flame of 
a lamp itself cannot be maintained, the Davy still supplies fight to 
the miner, and turns his worst enemy into an obedient servant. 
This invention, the certain source of large profit, he presented with 
characteristic liberality to the pubhc. The words are preserved in 
which, when pressed to secure to himself the benefit of a patent, 
he declined to do so, in conformity with the high-minded resolution 
which he formed, upon acquiring independent wealth, of never 



428 ANECDOTES, 

making his scientific eminence subservient to gain. " I have 
enough for all my views and purposes ; more \^fealth might be 
troublesome, and distract my attention from those pursuits in vi^hich 
T delight. More wealth could not increase my fame or happiness. 
It might undoubtedly enable me to put four horses to my carriage ; 
but what would it avail me to have it said that Sir Humphry drives 
his carriage and four V 

Like most individuals of worth, Davy was a man of true modesty, 
and in his dress and manners very simple. Volta, to whom he was 
introduced at Pavia, had attired himself in full dress to receive him, 
but is said to have started back with astonishment, on seeing the 
English philosopher make his appearance in a dress of which an 
English artisan»would have been ashamed. The following anec- 
dote is told of him : whilst staying for the night at a small inn in 
North Wales, with his friend Mr. Purkis, a third traveller entered 
into conversation with both, and, as happened, talked very learnedly 
about oxygen and hydrogen, and other matters relative to chemical 
science. When Davy, who had listened with great composure, had 
retired to rest, Mr. Purkis asked the stranger, what he thought of 
his friend who had just left him. " He appears," coolly replied the 
other, " rather a clever young man, with some general scientific 
knowledge : — pray what is his name ?" " Humphry Davy, of the 
Royal Institution," coolly replied the other. " Good heavens !" 
exclaimed the stranger, " was that really Davy ? — ^how have I ex- 
posed my ignorance and presumption !" 



The Thames Tunnel. 

As far back as the year 1802, a project was set on foot by 
some enterprising gentlemen, with a view of opening an archway 
under the Thames, between Rotherhithe and Limehouse, not far 
from the line of the present tunnel. The engineer selected for 
this enterprise was particularly qualified for such an undertaking, 
being an experienced Cornish miner. Having made some borings 
at the Horse-ferry and on the opposite side of the river, he re- 
ported that " he was firmly persuaded the undertaking would not 
cost so much as had been conceived." A subscription was, in 
consequence, raised ; and a company was formed, under the 
denomination of the " Thames Archway Company." Surveys, 
plans, and estimates were made, and an act of parliament being 
obtained, the work was begun. The engineer commenced opera- 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 429 

tions by sinking a shaft of eleven feet diameter, at three hundred 
and thirty feet from the Une of the wharf on the Rotherhithe side. 
But the obstacles which he encountered from the nature of the 
ground increased to such a degree, as he proceeded, that at the 
depth of forty-two feet he was obUged to desist. A subsequent 
report of borings, however, having proved very favorable, an en- 
terprising proprietor engaged to complete the shaft (reduced to 
eight feet diameter) to seventy-six feet, at which depth it was dis- 
covered that it would be dangerous to go deeper. At this stage 
of the proceedings, viz., in August, 1807, a second engineer was 
engaged by the company, a gentleman whose name had been 
coupled with very great enterprises in the mining department. 
Before opening the drift-way, both engineers agreed to reduce its 
breadth to two feet six inches at the top, and three feet at the bot- 
tom. At the depth of seventy-six feet they found the ground to 
consist of aj^rm dry sand ; and there they opened the drift, which 
they carried forward in a gentle ascent. In November, 1807, 
when three hundred and ninety-four feet of the drift had been 
completed, the services of the first engineer were dispensed with, 
after four years and a half of hard labor. The directors then 
agreed to give the second engineer £1,000, by way of premium, 
if he succeeded in reaching the opposite shore. The drift was 
further extended to eight hundred and fourteen feet, through 
equally firm dry ground, with the precaution, which had been em- 
ployed from the beginning, of a substantial planking all the way. 
One hundred and thirty-eight feet more were cut through a bed 
of calcareous rock eight feet thick. But on the 21st of December, 
the head of the drift had hardly entered two feet into the stratum, 
which lay immediately over the rock, when the roof broke down 
in a loose state, leaving above head a cavity large enough for a 
man to stand in it. It is to be observed that there was no less 
than thirty feet of intervening ground between the drift and the 
river at the time this accident happened. The engineer succeeded 
in filling and securing the cavity ; but, such was the nature of the 
whole ground above the rock, that, under the influence of an extra- 
ordinary high tide, (on the 26th of January, 1808,) the ground 
again made its way fast in a loose state into the drift, and the 
river soon broke through twenty-five feet of ground. This same 
tide caused the destruction of the Deptford and Lewisham bridges. 
The engineer having succeeded in filhng and closing this hole, 
the miners re-entered the drift, which was reduced to three feet 
in height, for the purpose of clearing the dangerous place. The 
miners had therefore, to work on their knees : however, notwith- 

19 



430 ANECDOTES, 

standing every effort to attain the opposite shore, they were driven 
away by the frequent bursts of sand and water. The engineer 
having afterwards sounded the ground from above, reported that 
he had no doubt the two fractures communicated underneath ; 
and therefore admitted that it was quite impracticable to go fur- 
ther except by means of a coffer-dam or caissons. On the 30th 
of March, 1809, the directors offered a reward for the most ap- 
proved plan of completing the archway. Fifty-four plans having 
been obtained by this announcement, they were referred to the 
opinion of scientific men. These gentlemen reported that they 
were unanimously of opinion, that an archway, of any useful size, 
was impracticable under the Thames by an underground excava- 
tion on any of the plans that had come before them ; observing, 
at the same time, that they did not pretend to assign limits to the 
ingenuity of other men. A further trial was made by a third en- 
gineer, who operated from above the river, but it proved equally 
fruitless. Thus ended, in 1809, all the exertions and the efforts 
made during nearly seven years, for the purpose of accomplishing 
an archway under the bed of the Thames ; at the end of which 
period not so much as a drain had been completed, nor had the 
miners succeeded in working in any of those strata wherein the 
excavation for the archway must eventually have been effected. 

Several years afterwards, Mr. Brunei was prevailed upon by 
one of the most active promoters of the archway enterprise (Mr. 
J. Wyatt) to turn his attention to the subject ; and, being furnished 
with the documents connected with the first attempt, he devised 
his plan with the impression that both the excavation and the 
structure might be made on a full scale at once. 

Before proceeding to an exposition of the plan adopted by Mr. 
Brunei, and of the means by which he has carried it into execu- 
tion, we have to state that the structure of the Thames Tunnel, 
as represented in the annexed view, is thirty-eight feet in width, 
and twenty-two feet six inches in height, externally ; and that a 
length of six hundred feet, in the style of a double arcade, has 
been made, though one arch only is open to public inspection. 
The excavation, therefore, made under the Thames for this struc- 
ture presents a sectional surface of eight hundred and fifty feet, 
which is equal to sixty times the area of the drift. At high water, 
the head of the river is about seventy-five feet ahove the foot of the 
excavation, and consequently three times the height of that room. 
These circumstances, independently of the nature of the ground, 
are sufficient to place the work of the Thames Tunnel among the 
boldest enterprises in the art of engineering. 

Notwithstanding that the first attempt had contributed to dis- 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 431 

jourage all idea of success, there were still sufficient evidences to 
indicate that by beginning in the stratum of dry firm sand, and 
keeping close under the stratum of clay forming the bottom of 
the river, there was space enough to effect the object, although 
the nature of the intervening ground had been ascertained to be 
very loose in many places. All the information obtained from 
the miner's report concurred with the opinions of geologists in 
pointing out that the most eligible line for the Tunnel was to keep 
as near to the bottom of the river as the security of the work 
would permit. The first idea of the plan which appeared to the 
engineer best calculated for making an excavation fit for the ob- 
ject under so overwhelming a head of water, was suggested by 
the sight of a piece of a keel of a ship which had been eroded 
by the operation of the worm called the terido. From this he 
conceived it practicable, as his specification describes it, to make 
a circular opening of sufficient capacity at once. However, of 
the two modes which he described, he gave the preference to that 
of proceeding by forming, simultaneously, several contiguous ex- 
cavations by means of an apparatus which has been denominated 
the shield. This shield, upon the whole, partakes of the character 
of a powerful coffer-dam, applied in a horizontal instead of the ver- 
tical direction. It consists of twelve parallel frames lying close to 
each other, like so many volumes in a bookcase. Each frame, 
being nearly twenty-two feet in height, is divided into three stories: 
the whole presents therefore thirty-six openings or cells. It is 
from these cells that the miners, operating by small quantities at 
a time, like so many teridos, are able to dig the ground in front, 
while others at the back bring up the brick structure. For loco- 
motive action each frame is provided with two substantial legs 
resting on equally substantial shoes, (not unlike snow-shoes ;) 
these legs are provided with joints, that fit the frames for a pacing 
movement. The shield has been pushed forward six hundred 
feet of its assigned career ; and has left behind a substantial struc- 
ture in the form of a double arcade. 

With regard to the external form of the structure, and the mode 
adopted for its execution, it must be obvious to persons acquainted 
with such matters, that the most substantial form, and the best 
calculated at the same time to prevent, as far as practicable, any 
derangement in alluvial strata of various degrees of density, is the 
square form, as corresponding with that mode of building which 
is technically called underjoining and underlaying. Thus, in fact, 
the bed of the river, with its contents, has been underlayed to 
receive the superstructure. 

An indispensable requisite in a worK of this nature was, that it 



432 ANECDOTES, 

should be made proof against the greatest disasters that were to 
be apprehended, notwithstanding every precaution that could be 
taken. Mr. Brunei's plan was considered by his grace the Duke 
of Wellington, by Dr. Wallaston, and by those engineers and 

scientific men who had the opportunity of examining the designs, J 

and of hearing the description given by the engineer, as being ^ 

well calculated to accomplish the contemplated object, although I 

some apprehensions were raised at the time as to what might re- | 

suit from so formidable an occurrence as an irruption of the river, I 

considering the extent of the devastation it might cause in the ] 

ground and among the works. The engineer afforded such ex- v 

planations as allayed, in some degree, those apprehensions which, | 

it must be admitted, he has since completely dispelled by unde- j 
niable facts. 

It was under these auspices that the plan was brought before i! 

the public in 1823, and that in the month of February, 1824, sub- f 

scriptions were obtained to a large amount to carry it into effect, I 

notwithstanding the novelty of the scheme, and its risks. J 

The company having been incorporated in 1824 by an act of \ 

parliament, the work was begun in March, 1825. A shaft fifty \ 

feet diameter was constructed, destined to form ultimately the I 

descent for the footways. This structure was in the first instance | 

laid upon piles, and raised to the height of forty-two feet, includ- : 

ing a cast-iron rim, intended to act as a cutter. A steam engine | 

of thirty-horse power was mounted on the top of this structure. • 
In this state, the piles being removed, this tower was brought to 
rest upon the edge of the cast-iron rim. It is easy to compre- 
hend, that, by clearing the ground inside, the whole must have 
descended. In this manner a structure, weighing about twelve 
hundred tons, was lowered to the depth of forty feet, through a 

stratum twenty-six feet deep, consisting of gravel and sand full of ■ 

water, wherein the drift-makers had met with almost insurmount- i 

able obstacles. It is to be remarked, that for this, and for the ! 

whole operation of the Tunnel, the engineer did not employ a f 

larger steam engine than had been required in the operations of j 

the drift- way. As the body of the Tunnel was to be opened at 1 

the depth of forty feet, the shaft was continued to sixty-four feet, ' 

by underlaying, leaving the space in the side open for the hori- | 

zontal work. A well, or cistern, twenty-five feet diameter, was I 

further made at the bottom of this shaft, for draining the ground ; J 

but in sinking it a quicksand suddenly burst upon the work. This !; 

event confirmed the report of the drift-makers, and of the geologists, i 

as to the existence of a dangerous bed of sand at about eighty to | 

eighty-five feet from the level of high water. The shield destined ; 




LOTSIGITUDINAL SECTION OF THE THAMES TUNNEL, 
Showing its course under the River. 




VERTICAL SECTION OF THE 'THAMES TUNNEL, 
Exhibiting the method of conducting the Work. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 435 

to precede the body of the Tunnel, was put up at the depth of forty- 
feet. The shield consists of twelve parallel frames twenty-two 
feet high. These being divided into three stories, present toge- 
ther thirty-six cells, destined for the working of the men. The 
whole constitute at the same time a powerful fence against the 
ground. The sides and the top are lined with sliding pieces, cor- 
responding with the sheet-piling of a coffer-dam ; and at the bot- 
tom it rests upon broad shoes. For its progressive movement 
each frame is provided with legs, which have their action in the 
lower cells. By this means each frame can be moved separately ; 
but the whole is brought forward by alternate moves, regulated 
by the progress of the work. Each operator provides for the 
security of his own cell, by covering the front with small boards, 
technically called polings ; and, as the miners vv^ork in front, the 
bricklayers work at the back in forming the structure, as shown 
in the adjoining engraving. 

The shield was entered under a substantial bed of clay, and its 
progress began, by about the 1st of January, 1826. It had not 
advanced above nine feet, when this substantial protection was 
found to break off at once, leaving the work open to a considerable 
influx of water and of fluid sand ; and it resulted that for thirty, 
two days the progress was extremely slow : however, by the 14th 
of March, the shield was brought into substantial ground again. 
From that day to the 14th of September following, two hundred 
and sixty feet of tunnel had been completed ; when, in conse- 
quence of a run of ground in a fluid state, a cavity was discovered 
to be formed above the head of the shield. A remarkable 
occurrence happened on that day. The engineer having oc- 
casion to meet the directors, stated to them that at the head of 
the tide, which was then rising, the bottom of the river would, 
he conceived, break down, observing at the same time that every 
thing was prepared to meet the case. The accident did actually 
occur. However, though this was the first occurrence of the kind 
under the river, the miners were in no way alarmed on hearing 
the river deposits faUing over the head of the shield, accompanied 
with a burst of water. The cavity soon filled itself, and with ad- 
ditional precaution the work was continued. An occurrence 
somewhat similar to the preceding one took place on the 18th of 
October following, with equal success in its consequences. On 
the 2d of January (1827) thi'ee hundred and fifty feet of tunnel 
had been made ; when, in the act of removing one of the poling- 
boards which cover the front of the excavation, some loose ground, 
of the consistency of tempered clay, impelled by the weight of an 
extraordinary high tide, made its way with an almost irresistible 



436 ANECDOTES, 

force ; but, with the auxiliary means which had been provided for 
emergencies of this nature, an irruption of the river was completely 
averted. 

The influence of the tide upon the ground to a depth of not less 
than thirty feet, was a circumstance which contributed more than 
any other to multiply the difficulties, and to give them an awful 
character. In its natural state the ground is compact, even when 
it consists of sand or of gravel ; but in consequence of an excavation 
on so large a scale, opening new vents for the passage or emission 
of water, it has resulted that some of the strata have been decom- 
posed and softened, some portions have become even liquid, and 
others have been kneaded into various degrees of consistency. 
These circumstances, which are exemplified in the three preced- 
ing occurrences, rendered the operations excessively complicated 
and laborious. C^her portions of the strata, consisting of round 
smooth pebbles, though imbedded in some adhesive' substances, 
were occasionally found as loose as chesnuts in a cask. It re- 
sulted, fi'om the concurrence of so many causes, that the ground, 
at the foundations in particular, instead of retaining its original 
state, as reported by the drift-makers, viz., a dry firm ground, 
was found to be so loose, even at the depth of several feet, that it 
became expedient to condense the ground before the foundations 
could be laid down. This was effected by means of substantial 
planking, compressed whh a power exceeding the greatest weight 
which each plank was computed to carry. The original idea of 
forming the structure by rings of nine inches, united by the ce- 
ment only, has proved the most efficient way to prevent the con- 
sequences that were to be apprehended from any derangement or 
disruptions that might result from partial settlements. 

From the 14th of January to the 14th of April following, al- 
though the ground was in general so loose that the river deposits 
were sometimes found in the way of the excavation, and althoagh 
the influx of water was generally excessively abundant, the pro- 
gress of the work exceeded upon the whole that of any period 
during the course of the operation : it has been as much as four- 
teen feet in a week, and even three feet per day. However, in 
consequence of the frequent run of fluid ground, the engineer ap- 
plied for and procured a diving-bell for the purpose of examining 
the bottom of the river. The first inspection took place on the 
22d of April. A shovel and a hammer, left at the bottom of the 
river, were not found again upon the next visit, as expected. Some 
depressions were discovered in several places and were secured. 

On the 12th of May, however, in the act of removing the polings 
in front of several cells, the ground made its way at the top of 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC 437 

ten frames in succession. One of the top cells, in particular, was 
filled several times, but by an expeditious move, and the intre- 
pidity of one of the miners, the ground was secured and the work 
was brought forward. In advancing one of the middle frames, 
the shovel and the hammer which had been missing, were found 
in the way of it, having descended at least eighteen feet into the 
ground. 

Notwithstanding the loose state of the ground, the shield had 
gradually gained under a more substantial covering, when several 
vessels, coming in at a late tide, moored just over the head of the 
Tunnel, where no vessels had moored since the docks had been 
open to the trade. It resulted from this obstruction to the stream, 
that those substances which protected the softer ground from the 
action of the tides, were washed away. The river soon made its 
way into the Tunnel, forming at first a transparent curtain be- 
tween the shield and the brick structure. Every exertion made 
to oppose it proved fruitless ; the river soon after broke in and 
filled the Tunnel. This irruption took place on the 18th of 
May, 1827. 

On exainining the hole with the diving-bell, the structure was 
ascertained to be perfectly sound, and the shield, to all appearance, 
undisturbed. The repairs were immediately proceeded with, by 
means of clay in bags, armed with small hazel rods : about three 
thousand tons of this filling, with some other soil, were required 
to close the hole, or rather the chasm, which was found to exceed 
thirty-eight feet in depth. 

At this period of the proceedings, many hundred projects were 
sent to the directors or to the engineer, but none were found ap- 
plicable to the case. 

On the 21st of June the Tunnel was sufficiently clear of water 
to be entered ; and by the middle of August the soil which had 
been driven into the arches was completely removed. The struc- 
ture was found quite sound ; but, owing to the settlement of the 
new ground, augmented too by the weight of the water, the frames 
were found separated at the head, the chain that united them 
having given Way. Nothing can convey so just an idea of the 
impetuosity of the irruption, as the state in which the invert of the 
arch was found. There the brickwork was reduced by nearly 
one half of its thickness, as if it had been battered with cannon- 
balls of small calibre ; at the thickest part of the foundation a 
hole was open, as if made by the fall of a fourteen-inch shell. 
Some heavy pieces of casting belonging to the shield had disap- 
peared ; but they were found afterwards driven into the ground as if 
forced by a powerful ram. In consequence of the continued depres- 

19* 



438 ANECDOTES, 

sion of the new-made ground, moving too in an oblique direction, 
several further ruptures took place in the frames, with reports as 
loud as cannon-shots. The men were not, however, dismayed, 
even at the sensible movement of the ground : although the frames 
were separated by more than two feet at the head, the arches ex- 
perienced no derangement whatever. The work was resumed 
and extended fifty feet beyond the first irruption ; and, notwith- 
standing the disadvantages under which this additional portion 
was effected with a shield so very much weakened, and so much 
out of order, no part of the structure has been more substantially 
constituted than these fifty feet, which brought the whole to the 
middle of the low water. 

In the early part of January, 1828, in consequence, in a great 
measure, of the interruption which had taken place during the pre- 
ceding week''s holidays, the ground had become looser than be- 
fore. On the 12th, in particular, the greatest precautions became 
necessary against a manifest danger. The men were ordered out 
in time, except four, whom Mr. Brunei, jun., selected to remain 
with him. Every exertion was made to oppose the mass of earth, 
but the ground, swelling and rolling in, as we are told- of the pro- 
gress of lava, became irresistible in its progress. One of the men, 
having executed his part, made his escape. Suddenly, as Mr. 
Brunei was directing the others how to save themselves, the 
ground burst in like a volcanic irruption, with a tremendous crash ; 
all the lights were blown out at once. Through this total dark, 
ness Mr. Brunei reached the shaft, but the water was at the top 
before him. The men collected at the top had seen the waves 
close upon the scene before Mr. Brunei emerged from it. The 
three men were not so fortunate ; three others wei'e likewise lost ; 
but these must have been the victims of their own imprudence and 
curiosity, as they had not been detained in the work. 

This second irruption, though still more sudden and more 
formidable than the first, was overcome by the same means. No 
less than four thousand tons of soil, chiefly clay in bags, were re- 
quired to fill the chasm and effect a substantial covering. On 
re-entering the Tunnel, the structure was found perfectly sound ; 
and the shield vv:as a powerful barrier against which the bags were 
collected and retained by these rods with which they were armed. 

In this state of things, the pecuniary resources of the company 
being too low to proceed with the work, the directors found them- 
selves reduced to the necessity of discontinuing it. The ends of 
the arches were accordingly closed until means could be obtained 
to resume the undertaking. Many more plans were received by 
the directors at this juncture, but all were equally unavailable. It 




CROSS SECTION OF THE THAMES TUNNEL," 
Exhibiting the ArrangemeDt of the Masonry. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 441 

has, however, since been resumed under favorable auspices, and 
at the present time the Tunnel is about completed. 

The average cost of the Thames Tunnel does not exceed 
£6 3s. 9d. per cubic yard of the ground removed, including the 
structure, which contains nine hundred and sixty rods of brick- 
work. The average cost of the drift-way is £16 10s. per cubic 
yard, with no more than seven rods of brickwork. 



Watchmaking in Swtizerland. 

The following details are given in an abridged form from a 
" Report on the Commerce and Manufactures of Switzerland," by 
Dr. Bowring, recently laid before Parliament. A large portion 
of the facts were furnished to Dr. Bowring by M. Houriet, an in- 
telligent manufacturer, who, in his communication, dated January, 
1836, asks for indulgence on the plea that he is neither " a learned 
man nor a writer," and yet, says Dr. Bowring, " a more interest- 
ing and instructive document has seldom, I believe, been furnished." 

One of the largest and most interesting branches of Swiss in- 
dustry is the watchmaking trade. It is carried on to an immense 
and still increasing extent in the mountainous districts of Neuchatel, 
in the French portion of the Canton of Berne, and in the town and 
neighborhood of Geneva. It has been a source of wealth and 
comfort to many thousands of the inhabitants, who, in the seldom, 
visited villages of the Jura, have gathered around them a large por- 
tion of the enjoyments of life. Switzerland has long furnished the 
markets of France ; and though the names of certain French 
watchmakers have obtained a European celebrity, yet Dr. Bowring 
was informed by M. Arago that an examination into this trade had 
elicited the fact that not ten watches were made in Paris in the 
course of a year, the immense consumption of France being fur- 
nished from Switzerland, and the Swiss works being only examined 
and rectified by the French manufacturers. The contraband trade 
into France was immense, and no custom-house regulations could 
stop the introduction of articles so costly and so little bulky. They 
are now admitted into France at six per cent, for gold, and ten per 
cent, for silver watches, and a considerable quantity pays this 
moderate duty. 

The Jura mountains have been the cradle of much celebrity in 
the mechanical arts, particularly in those more exquisite produc- 
tions of which a minute complication is the peculiar character. 
During the winter, which lasts from six to seven months, the inha- 
bitants are^ as it were, imprisoned in their dwellings, and occupied 



442 ANECDOTES, 

in those works which require the utmost development of skilful 
ingenuity. Nearly one hundred and twenty thousand watches are 
produced annually in the elevated regions of Neuchatel. In Swit- 
zerland the most remarkable of the French watchmakers, and 
among them one who has lately obtained the gold medal at Paris 
for his beautiful watch-movements, had their birth and education : 
and a sort of honorable distinction attaches to the watchmaking 
trade. The horologers consider themselves as belonging to a 
nobler profession than ordinary mechanics, and do not willingly 
allow their children to marry into what they consider the inferioi 
classes. 

The art or trade of clockmaking was introduced into the moun- 
tains of Neuchatel in a manner worthy of notice. As early as the 
seventeenth century some workmen had constructed clocks with 
weights, but no idea had been conceived of making clocks with 
springs. About the end of that century, an inhabitant of the moun- 
tains, returning from a long voyage, brought with him a watch, 
which was an object previously unknown in the country. It was 
put into the hands of a skilful workman to be repaired, who sue 
ceeded in doing so, and then tried to make a similar article. He 
succeeded in effecting this also, notwithstanding the difficulties 
which lay in his way, he having to construct the tools with which 
he wrought, as well as all the different movements of the watch. 
His success naturally created a great sensation ; other workmen 
were stimulated to try what they could do, and a new branch of 
industry sprung up in the mountains of Neuchatel. During the 
first forty or fifty years a few workmen only were employed in 
watchmaking ; and owing to the numberless difficulties they had 
to surmount, to the slowness of execution caused by the absence 
of convenient tools, the want of proper materials, &c., the produc- 
tions and profits were inconsiderable. They began at length to 
procure the articles of which they stood in need from Geneva, and 
afterwards from England ; but the high prices which these articles 
cost induced many of the workmen to attempt to provide them for 
themselves. They not only thus succeeded in rivaUing foreign 
tools, but they eventually made many superior ones till then unknown. 
From that period they have constantly invented other instruments 
in order to facilitate and perfect the art of watchmaking ; and at the 
present moment the manufacture of watchmaking tools and appur- 
tenances is become a branch of industry of so much importance, 
as to enable the inhabitants to supply them to those countries from 
whence they formerly imported them. 

It is not more than eighty or ninety years since a few merchants 
began to collect together small parcels of watches^ in order to sell 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 443 

them in foreign markets. The success which attended these spe- 
culations induced and encouraged the population to devote them- 
selves still more to the production of articles of ready sale ; so 
much so, that nearly the entire inhabitants have embraced the 
watchmaking trade. The population has increased threefold, in- 
dependently of the great number of workmen who are established 
in almost all the towns of Europe, in the United States of America, 
and even in the East Indies and China. From this period a great 
change has taken place in the country of Neuchatel, where, not- 
withstanding the barrenness of the soil and the severity of the cli- 
mate, beautiful and well-built villages are everywhere to be seen, 
connected by easy communications, together with a very considera- 
ble and industrious population, in the enjoyment, if not of great 
fortunes, at least of a happy and easy independence. 

" If our watches," says M. Houriet, " have attained a certain 
reputation of superiority, it is in a great measure to be attributed 
to the independence of our workmen, and to the advantage which 
they have derived from a careful and studied execution of the 
several articles intrusted to their respective and particular talents. 
Indeed, on the one hand, each artisan working at home, and for 
whomsoever pays him the best price, and on the other, the mer- 
chant having an interest to encourage by paying the best prices to 
those who furnish him with the best materials and work, a kind of 
emulation is naturally excited among the workmen to obtain a pre- 
ference and an advantage. Perhaps, also, the spirit which is gene- 
rally diffused among the inhabitants of mountainous countries, 
added to the habits and customs of our workmen, who are at the 
same time landed proprietors, has not a little contributed to this 
development of talent amongst our population. Living simply, 
and in the bosom of their families, occupied entirely (with the ex- 
ception of a few slight agricultural cares) in the labors of their art, 
and not being exposed to those temptations which exist in and cor- 
rupt large societies, it is very natural that they should be_ more 
assiduous and more desirous of attaining perfection in their art ; 
and the more so still, as they derive a greater benefit from it, their 
reputation and their interest are equally engaged. 

" The present condition of this branch of industry is extremely 
prosperous, and it is with great difficulty that we can succeed in 
executing all the orders which we receive. 

" As to the probable fate of this trade, it is even permitted to 
hope, and with much probability, that it is yet susceptible of exten- 
sion. A watch is no longer, as it was formerly, an object of luxury, 
destined exclusively for the rich ; it has become an article of the 
first necessity for every class in society : and as, together with the 



444 ANECDOTES, 

increased perfection of this article, its value has at the same time 
considerably diminished, it is evident that a common watch, which 
will exactly indicate the hour of the day, is actually (by its low 
price) within the reach of almost every individual, who will likewise 
feel anxious to possess one. For this reason, and in proportion 
as commercial and maritime relations are extended and emanci- 
pated from the trammels m which the great central marts of com- 
merce have involved them, so will distant nations become civilized ; 
and it may be fairly anticipated that the art of watchmaking will 
form a part of the great current of improvement. 

" The number of watches manufactured annually in this canton 
(Neuchatel) may be calculated to be from 100,000 to 120,000, of 
which about 35,000 are in gold, and the rest in silver. Now, sup- 
posing the first, on an average, to be worth 150 francs, and the 
others 20 francs, it would represent a capital of nearly 7,000,000 
francs, without taking into consideration the sale of clocks and 
instruments for watchmaking, the amount of which is very large. 

" Not only the whole of the European markets, but also those 
of the most distant countries, are now opened to our productions. 
The United States of America consume the largest proportion of 
our watches. There is, however, a great difference with respect 
to the degree of facility which is afforded to us by the several na- 
tions with whom we deal. In Austria, and in all the countries 
under her dominion, as well as in Sweden, our clocks and watches 
are prohibited, and only penetrate by fraud. In England, the duty 
is twenty-five per cent, for home consumption ; and for the colonies, 
though there is in London a bonding depot, it offers too many dis- 
advantages and impediments to permit us to make use of it : for 
an ai'ticle of such careful and delicate construction ought not to be 
mixed pell-mell with grosser commodities, as it runs too great a 
risk of being seriously damaged. In Spain, and in most of the 
Italian States, the duty is equivalent to a prohibition. In France, 
the duty has recently been reduced sufficiently low to render smug- 
gling unnecessary. In Russia and in the United States, the duty, 
though high, can still be borne. In Prussia, the duty has always 
been moderate, and of late years it has been reduced by one-half 
in favor of our productions. Finally, the States of the German 
and the Swiss Confederation are the only countries which have 
been entirely open to this species of commerce ; and it has always 
reen easy to forward to Turkey and to the Levant by the free 
ports of the Mediterranean. We are making arrangements with 
Russia for an overland trade to China." 

With the exception of gold and silver for the manufacture of the 
watch-cases, the other materials for the construction of the works 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 445 

or mechanism of the Neuchatel watches are of little value, con- 
sisting merely of a little brass and steel. The steel is imported 
from England, and is reckoned the best that can be procured ; the 
brass, which was formerly brought from Holland, is now furnished 
by France, the French brass being now considered much superior. 
With respect to gold and silver, the inhabitants of Neuchatel have 
no other resom'ce but to melt current money, which induces M. 
Houriet to suggest that an advantageous commerce might be opened 
up with such countries as possess the precious metals. 

The spirit of adventure is very strong among the industrious 
inhabitants of the Jura Mountains. A great many of them have 
travelled into veiy remote countries, whence some have returned 
with considerable fortunes. A few years ago a watchmaker of 
Neuchatel found his way to China, where he amassed a handsome 
property by importing watches ; and he returned home since, ac- 
companied by a young Chinese, whom he caused to be instructed 
in the trade, and who had sailed for Canton only a few weeks befoi'e 
Dr. Bowring's visit. 



Perpetual Motion. 

An able writer in the ' Penny Magazine'' has clearly shown the 
futility of seeking to square the circle, a pursuit in which, he says, 
persons are still engaged. How many may waste their time on 
such an object I have no means of knowing ; not any considera- 
ble numbfey; I should think, as nobody can expect any profit to 
arise even from success. At all events, such enthusiasts must be 
few indeed compared with those who are spending their days and 
nights, and exhausting their means, in the equally vain hope of 
discovering the perpetual motion. Professional men, employed in 
preparing patents, could tell of project after project submitted to 
them by the impatient inventor who is afraid of waiting to perfect 
his machine, lest his invaluable secret should get abroad, and he 
should be deprived of the riches which he has all but in his 
grasp. » 

Two classes of persons are inveigled into this hopeless quest : 
the first is the projector, — generally a man who can handle tools, 
and who is gifted with some small power of invention, — a faculty, 
as Mr. Babbage justly observes, by no means rare, and of little 
use unless coupled with some knowledge of what others have done 
before him. Of the inventions already made, — of the experiments 
which have been tried and have failed, — our projector is usually 
profoundly ignorant. What are called the laws of machanics, 
namely, general truths which were established by the observations 



446 ANECDOTES, 

of scientific men in times past, and which are now admitted by 
all who take the trouble to investigate them, he has either never 
heard of, or chooses to set at nought without inquiry. The other 
class is that which finds capital. The projector, having perhaps 
exhausted his own funds, takes his scheme to some person who 
has a little money to spare, and dazzles him with the prospects 
of sudden and splendid wealth : little by little he is drawn into 
expenses which neither of them perhaps had anticipated. Failuj'e 
after failure ensues, but still all is to be right at last. The fear 
of ridicule, — the necessity for retrieving, the one his capital, the 
other his credit, — these motives carry them on till the ruin of 
both puts a termination to their folly. 

Unhappily, however, the stage is quickly occupied by other 
adventurers, profiting nothing by the fate of their precursors ; and 
yet one would think that a very slight consideration of the subject 
would be sufficient to show the absurdity of the undertaking. 
What is the object aimed at ? Is it to make a machine which, 
being once set in motion, shall go on without stopping until it is 
worn out ? Every person engaged in the pursuit of the perpetual 
motion would perhaps accept this as a true statement of the object 
in view. Yet nothing is more easy than to make such a machine. 
There are from ten to twenty of them at work at this moment 
on the Rhine, opposite Mayence. These are water-mills in boats, 
which are moored in a certain part of the river ; and, as the 
Rhine is never dry, these mills, which are simple in their con- 
struction, would go on for years, — go on, indeed, untjl^.they were 
worn out. But if this instance were mentioned, the projector 
would perceive that the statement of his object was imperfect. It 
must run thus : a machine which, being set in motion, shall go 
on till worn out without any power being employed to keep it in 
motion. 

Probably few persons who embark in such a project sit down 
beforehand to consider thoroughly what it is they are about to 
undertake, otherwise it could hardly require much knowledge of 
mechanics to see the impossibility of constructing such a machine. 
Take as many shafts, wheels, pulleys, and springs as you please : 
if you throw them in a heap in the corner of your room, you do 
not expect them to move ; it is only when put together that the 
wildest enthusiast expects them to be endowed with the power of 
self-movement ; nor then unless the machine is set going. I never 
heard of a projector who expected his engine to set off" the moment 
the last nail was driven, or instantly on the last stroke of the file. 
And why not ? A machine that would continue to go of itself 
would begin of itself. No machine can be made which has not 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 447 

some friction, which, however slight, would in a short time exhaust 
any power that could have been employed merely for the purpose of 
setting it in motion. But a machine, to be of any use, must noi 
only keep moving itself, but furnish power ; or, in other words, 
it must not only keep in motion, but it must have power to expend 
in some labor, as grinding corn, rolling metals, urging forward a 
vessel or a carriage ; so that, by an arrangement of parts which 
of themselves have no moving power, the projector expects to 
make a machine, self-moving, and with the power of performing 
some useful task ! 

" Father, I have invented a perpetual motion !" said a little 
fellow of eight years old. " It is thus : I would make a great 
wheel, and fix it up like a water-wheel ; at the top I would hang 
a great weight, and at the bottom I would hang a number of little 
weights ; then the great weight would turn the wheel half round 
and sink to the bottom, because it is so heavy, and when the little 
weights reached the top, they would sink down because they are 
so many, and thus the wheel would turn round for ever." The 
child's fallacy is a type of all the blunders which are made on this 
subject. Follow a projector in his description, and if it be not 
perfectly uninteUigible, which it often is, it always proves that he 
expects to find certain of his movements alternately strong and 
weak, not according to the laws of nature, but according to the 
wants of his mechanism. 

If man could produce a machine which would generate the 
power by which it is worked, he would become a creator. All 
he has hitherto done, — all, I may safely predict, he ever will do, — 
is to mould existing power so as to make it perform his bidding. 
He can make the waterfall in the brook spin his cotton, or print 
his book by means of machinery, but a mill to pump water enough 
to keep itself at work he cannot make. Absurd as it may seem, 
the experiment has been tried ; but, in truth, no scheme is too 
absurd for adoption by the seekers after perpetual motion. A 
machine, then, is a mere conductor of power into a useful channel. 
The wind grinds the corn, — the sails, the shafts, and the stones 
are only the means by which the power of the wind can be turned 
to that particular purpose ; so it is the heat thrown out by the 
burning coal which performs all the multifarious operations of the 
steam engine, the machinery being only the connecting links be- 
tween the cause and the effect. 

Perhaps these remarks may induce any projector who has not 
yet begun, to pause on his enterprise ; and may cause those who 
are about to advance their capital in such vain speculations, to eX' 
amine the probabilities of a return for their outlay. 



446 



ANECDOTES, 




This ingenious contrivance, like the catamarans and massul'ah 
boats of Madras, is used for landing with safety through a heavy 
surf. The " Balsa," which is especially employed on the coasts of 
South America, both east and west, exhibits a remarkable instance 
of the ingenuity of the human mind in overcoming those obstacles 
which nature has raised to the prosecution of its pursuits. It is form- 
ed of two seal skins sewed up so as to form large bags from seven to 
nine feet in length ; these, being covered with a bituminous sub- 
stance so as to be perfectly air-tight, are inflated by flexible tubes 
and secured by ligatures ; the pipe is of sufficient length to reach 
the mouth of the conductor of this frail bark, who is thus enabled 
occasionally to replenish the bladders with air, should any have 
escaped. The two are securely fastened together at one end, 
which forms the prow of the vessel ; the other ends are spread 
about four feet apart by a small plank, and the raft completed 
with small sticks covered over with matting. The manager of 
the balsa sits well forward, with his passengers or goods close 
behind him, and armed with a double-bladed paddle approaches 
the back of the surf, waiting for the highest wave, and contrives 
to keep his balsa on the top of it with her bow towards the shore 
till she is thrown upon the beach to the very extent that the surf 
reaches, and the man immediately jumps off" to secure his balsa 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 449 

from returning with the sea, when the passengers land without 
wetting the soles of their shoes. The balsa will easily carry three 
passengers besides the person who guides it, and is employed in 
landing the cargoes from merchant vessels where the violence of 
the surf, particularly on the shores of the Pacific, prevents the 
possibility of European boats passing through it without great 
danger. Along the coast of Peru, which is almost entirely devoid 
of harbors, it is the only vessel used for these purposes, and by 
such frail means large bags of dollars and doubloons, and bars 
of silver and gold, are shipped off, without the least apprehension 
of their safe conveyance. Balsa, which is a Spanish word, means, 
in a nautical sense, float or raft ; the above description applies 
only to that kind used at sea, but there is another balsa, more 
simple and more frail, used in crossing rivers, an account of which 
is thus given by Mr. Temple in his humorous and entertaining 
Travels in Peru : " Take a dried bullock ''s hide, pinch up each 
of the four corners, put a stitch with a thorn to keep those corners 
together, and your boat is made. For use, place it upon the water 
bottom downwards, then put one foot immediately in the centre, 
and let the other follow with the most delicate caution ; you are 
now to shrink downwards, contracting your body precisely in the 
manner in which, probably, in your childhood, you have pressed 
a friar into a snuff-lox. When crouched down in the bottom, 
sundry articles are handed in and ingeniously deposited round 
you, until the balsa sinks to about an inch or an inch and a half ; 
it is then considered sufficiently laden. A naked -peone (guide) 
now plunges into the stream, and, taking hold of one corner of 
the balsa, a peone on the shore imparts a gentle impulse to your 
tottering bark, while the person in the water, keeping hold of the 
corner with one hand, strikes out with the other, and swims away 
with you to the opposite bank.'" The work from which the above 
extract is made, is written in so facetious and lively a strain, at 
the same time giving such faithful and characteristic sketches of 
the customs of the country, that his readers cannot fail to receive 
amusement as well as instruction. 



Automata. 

An automaton is a piece of mechanism, made to resemble a liv- 
ing creature in outward appearance, and contrived so as to perform 
certain actions, resembUng those of the being it represents. Both 
in ancient and modern times, the skill of uigenious men has been 



450 ANECDOTES, 

directed to contrivances of this nature, some of which have dis 
played wonderful powers of invention, though in general little or 
no utility, unless so far as they were sources of public amusement, 
and examples of what may be accomplished by reflection and long 
perseverance. Brewster, in his Natural Magic, has given a very 
full account of the most remarkable automata, from which this 
article is principally taken. 

Mechanical automata of the ancients. — The ancients had attained 
some degree of perfection in the construction of automata. The 
tripods which Homer mentions as having been constructed by 
Vulcan for the banqueting-hall of the gods, advanced of their own 
accord to the table, and again returned to their place. Self-moving 
tripods are mentioned by Aristotle, and Philostratus informs us, in 
his Life of Apollonius, that this philosopher saw and admired simi- 
lar pieces of mechanism among the sages of India. 

Automata of DcRdalus. — Dasdalus enjoys also the reputation of 
having constru-oted machines that imitated the motions of the hu- 
man body. Some of his statues are said to have moved about 
spontaneously, and Plato, Aristotle, and others have related that it 
was necessary to tie them, in order to prevent them from running 
away. Aristotle speaks of a wooden Venus, which moved about 
in consequence of quicksilver being poured into its interior ; but 
Callistratus, the tutor of Demosthenes, states, with some probability, 
that the statues of Daedalus received their motion from the me- 
chanical powers. Beckmann is of opinion that the statues of 
Dsedalus differed only from those of the early Greeks and Egyp- 
tians in having their eyes open and their feet and hands free, and 
that the reclining posture of some, and the attitude of others, " as 
if ready to walk," gave rise to the exaggeration that they possessed 
the power of locomotion. This opinion, however, c-annot be main, 
tained with any show of reason; for if we apply such a principle 
in one case, we must apply it in all, and the mind would be left in 
a state of utter skepticism respecting the inventions of ancient 
times. 

Wooden pigeon of Archytas. — We are informed by Aulus Gel- 
lius, on the authority of Favorinus, that Archytas of Tarentum, 
who flourished about four hundred years before Christ, constructed 
a wooden pigeon which was capable of flying. Favorinus relates, 
that when it had once alighted, it could not again resume its flight ; 
and Aulus Gellius adds, that it was suspended by balancing, and 
animated by a concealed aura or spirit. 

Automatic clock of Charlemagne. — Among the earliest pieces 
of modern mechanism was the curious water-clock presented to 
Charlemagne by the Kaliph Harun al Raschid. In the dial-plate 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 451 

there were twelve small windows, corresponding with the divisions 
of the hours. The hours were indicated by the opening of the 
windows, which let out little metallic balls, which struck the hour 
by falling upon a brazen bell. The doors continued open till 
twelve o'clock, when twelve little knights, mounted on horseback, 
came out at the same instant, and after parading around the dial, 
shut all the windows, and returned to their apartments. 

Automata of Midler and Turrianus.-r— The next automata of 
which any distinct account has been preserved, are those of the 
celebrated John Muller, or Regiomontanus, which have been men- 
tioned by Kircher, Baptista Porta, Gassendi, Lana, and Bishop 
Wilkins. This philosopher is said to have constructed an artificial 
eagle, which flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian when he ar- 
rived at Nuremberg on the 7th June, 1470. After soaring aloft 
in the air, the eagle is stated to have met the emperor at some 
distance from the city, and to have returned and perched upon the 
town gate, where it waited his approach. When the emperor 
reached the gate, the eagle stretched out its wings, and saluted 
him by an inclination of its body. Muller is likewise reported to 
have constructed an iron fly, which was put in motion by wheel- 
work, and which flew about and leaped upon the table. At an 
entertainment given by this philosopher to some of his familiar 
friends, the fly flew from his hand, and after performing a con- 
siderable round, it returned again to the hand of its master. 

The Emperor Charles V., after his abdication of the throne, 
amused himself in his later years with automata of various kinds. 
The artist whom he employed was Janellus Turrianus of Cre- 
mona. It was his custom after dinner to introduce upon the table 
figures of armed men and horses. Some of these beat drums, 
others played upon flutes, while a third set attacked each other 
with spears. Sometimes he let fly wooden sparrows, which flew 
back again to their nest. He also exhibited corn-mills so ex- 
tremely small that they could be concealed in a glove, yet so 
powerful that they could grind in a day as much corn as would 
supply eight men with food for a day. 

Camus's carriage. — The next piece of mechanism of sufficient 
interest to merit our attention is that which was made by M. Ca- 
mus for the amusement of Louis XIV. when a child. It consisted 
of a small coach, which was drawn by two horses, and which 
contained the figure of a lady within, with a footman and page 
behind. When this machine was placed at the extremity of a 
table of the proper size, the coachman smacked his whip, and the 
horses instantly set off", moving their legs in a natural manner, and 
drawing the coach after them When *he coach reached the op- 



452 ANECDOTES, 

posite edge of the table, it turned sharply at a right angle, and 
proceeded along the adjacent edge. As soon as it arrived oppo- 
site the place where the king sat, it stopped ; the page descended 
and opened the coach door ; the lady alighted, and with a courtesy 
presented a petition, which she held in her hand, to the king. 
After waiting some time she again courtesied and re-entered the 
carriage. The page closed his door, and having resumed his 
place behind, the coachman whipped his horses and drove on. 
The footman, who had previously alighted, ran after the carriage, 
and jumped up behind into his former place. 

Degennes'' mechanical peacock. — Not content with imitating the 
movements of animals, the mechanical genius of the 17th and 18th 
centuries ventured to perform by wheels and pinions the functions 
of vitality. We are informed by M. Lobat, that General De- 
gennes, a French officer who defended the colony of St. Christo- 
pher's against the English forces, constructed a peacock which 
could walk about as if alive, pick up grains of corn from the 
ground, digest them as if they had been submitted to the action 
of the stomach, and afterward discharge them in an altered form. 
Degennes is said to have invented various machines of great use 
in navigation and gunnery, and to have constructed clocks without 
weights or springs. 

Vaucanson's duck. — The automaton of Degennes probably sug- 
gested to M. Vaucanson the idea of constructing his celebrated 
duck, which excited so much interest throughout Europe, and 
which was perhaps the most wonderful piece of mechanism that 
was ever made. Vaucanson's duck exactly resembled the living 
animal in size and appearance. It executed accurately all its 
movements and gestures, it ate and drank with avidity, performed 
all the quick motions of the head and throat which are peculiar to 
the living animal, and, like it, it muddled the water which it drank 
with its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking in the most 
natural manner. In the anatomical structure of the duck the 
artist exhibited the highest skill. Every bone in the real duck 
had its representative in the automaton, and its wings were ana- 
tomically exact. Every cavity, apophysis, and curvature was 
imitated, and each bone executed its proper movements. When 
corn was thrown down before it, the duck stretched out its neck 
to pick it up, it swallowed it, digested it, and dischai'ged it in a 
digested condition. The process of digestion was effected by 
chemical solution, and not by trituration, and the food digested in 
the stomach was conveyed away by tubes to the place of its dis- 
charge. 

The automata of Vaucanson were imitated by one Du Moulin, 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 453 

a silversmith, who travelled with them through Germany in 1752, 
and who died at Moscow in 1765. Beckmann informs us that he 
saw several of them after the machinery had been deranged ; but 
that the artificial duck, which he regarded as the most ingenious, 
was still able to eat, drink, and move. Its ribs, which were made 
of wire, were covered with duck's feathers, and the motion was 
communicated through the feet of the duck by means of a cylinder 
and fine chains like that of a watch. 

Drawing and writing automata. — Various pieces of mechanism 
of wonderful ingenuity have been constructed for the purposes of 
drawing and writing. One of these, invented by M. Le Droz, the 
son of the celebrated Droz ofChaux le Fonds, has been described 
by Mr. CoUinson. The figure was the size of life. It held in its 
hand a metallic style, and when a spring was touched so as to re- 
lease a detent, the figure immediately began to draw upon a card 
of Dutch vellum previously laid under its hand. After the draw, 
ing was executed on the first card, the figure rested. Other five 
cards were then put in in succession, and upon these it delineated 
in the same manner diffi^rent subjects. On the first card it drew 
" elegant portraits and likenesses of the king and queen facing 
each other;" and Mr. CoUinson remarks, that it was curious to 
observe with what precision the figure lifted up its pencil in its 
transition from one point of the drawing to another without making 
the slightest mistake. 

Maillardet^s conjurer. — IM. Maillardet has executed an auto- 
maton which both writes and draws. The figure of a boy kneel- 
ing on one knee holds a pencil in his hand. When the figure 
begins to work, an attendant dips the pencil in ink, and adjusts 
the drawing-paper upon a brass tablet. Upon touching a spring 
the figure proceeds to write, and when the hne is finished its 
hand returns to dot and stroke the letters when necessary. In this 
manner it executes four beautiful pieces of writing in French and 
English, and three landscapes, all of which occupy about one hour. 

One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have 
seen is the magician constructed by M. Maillardet for the purpose 
of answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a 
magician, appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand 
in one hand and a book in the other. A number of questions ready 
prepared are inscribed on oval medaUions, and the spectator takes 
any of these which he chooses, and to which he wishes an answer, 
and having placed it in a drawer ready to receive it, the drawer 
shuts with a spring till the answer is returned. The magician then 
rises from his seat, bows his head, describes circles with his wand, 
and consulting the book as if in deep thought, he lifts it towards 

20 



454 ANECDOTES, 

his face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the proposed ques- 
tion, he raises his wand, and striking vi'ith it the wall above his 
head, two folding-doors fly open, and display an appropriate answer 
to the question. The doors again close, the magician resumes his 
original position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. 
There are twenty of these medallions, all containing different ques- 
tions, to which the magician returns the most suitable and striking 
answers. The medallions are thin plates of brass of an elliptical 
form, exactly resembling each other. Some of the medallions have 
a question inscribed on each side, both of which the magician an- 
swers in succession. If the drawer is shut without a medallion 
being put into it, the magician rises, consults his book, shakes his 
head, and resumes his seat. The folding-dooz's remain shut, and 
the drawer is returned empty. If two medaUions are put into the 
drawer together, an answer is returned only to the lower one. 
When the machinery is wound up, the movements continue about 
an hour, during which time about fifty questions may be answered. 
The inventor stated that the means by which the different medal- 
lions acted upon the machinery, so as to produce the proper an- 
swers to the questions which they contained, were extremely simple. 

The same ingenious artist has constructed various other auto- 
mata, representing insects and other animals. One of these was 
a spider entirely made of steel, which exhibited all the movements 
of the animal. It ran on the surface of a table during three minutes, 
and to prevent it from running off, its course always tended towards 
the centre of the table. He constructed likewise a caterpillar, a 
lizard, a mouse, and a serpent. The serpent crawls about in every 
direction, opens its mouth, hisses, and darts out its tongue. 

Benefits derived from the passion for automata. — Ingenious and 
beautiful as all these pieces of mechanism are, and surprising as 
their effects appear even to scientific spectators, the principal object 
of their inventors was to astonish and amuse the public. We 
should form an erroneous judgment, however, if we supposed that 
this was the only result of the ingenuity which they displayed. The 
passion for automatic exhibitions which characterized the 18th 
century, gave rise to the most ingenious mechanical devices, and 
introduced among the higher orders of artists habits of nice and 
accurate execution in the formation of the most delicate pieces of 
machinery. The same combination of the mechanical powers 
which made the spider crawl, or which waved the tiny rod of the 
magician, contributed in future years to purposes of higher import. 
Those wheels and pinions, which alnbost eluded our senses by their 
minuteness, reappeai'ed in the stupendous mechanism of our spin, 
uing-machines and our steam-engines. The elements of the turn- 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 455 

bling puppet were revived in the chronometer, which now conducts 
navies through the ocean ; and the shapeless wheel which directed 
the hand of the drawing automaton, has served in the present age 
to guide the movements of the tambouring engine. Those mechani- 
cal wonders which in one century enriched only the conjurer who 
used them, contributed in another to augment the wealth of the 
nation ; and those automatic toys which once amused the vulgar, 
are now employed in extending the power and promoting the civi- 
lization of our species. In whatever way, indeed, the power of 
genius may invent or combine, and to whatever low or even ludi- 
crous purposes that invention or combination may be originally 
apphed, society receives a gift which it can never lose ; and though 
the value of the seed may not be at once recognised, and though 
it may lie long unproductive in the ungenial till of human know- 
ledge, it will some time or other evolve its germ, and yield to man- 
kind its natural and abundant harvest. 

BuncarCs tanibouring machine. — The tambouring of muslins, or 
the art of producing upon them ornamental flowers and figures, has 
been long known and practised in Britain, as well as in other coun- 
tries ; but it was not long before the year 1790 that it became an 
object of general manufacture in the west of Scotland, where it was 
chiefly carried on. At first it was under the direction of foreigners ; 
but their aid was not long necessary, and it speedily extended to 
such a degree as to occupy either wholly or partially more than 
20,000 females. Many of these laborers hved in the neighborhood 
of Glasgow, which was the chief seat of the manufacture, but others 
were scattered through every part of Scotland, and supplied by 
agents with work and money. In Glasgow, a tambourer of ordi- 
nary skill could not in general earn more than five or six shillings 
a week by constant application ; but to a laboring artisan, who had 
several daughters, even these low wages formed a source of great 
wealth. At the age of five years, a child capable of handling a 
needle was devoted to tambouring, even though it could not earn 
more than a shilling or two in a week ; and the consequence of 
this was, that female children were taken from school, and rendered 
totally unfit for any social or domestic duty. The tambouring 
population was therefore of the worst kind, and it must have been 
regarded as a blessing rather than as a calamity, when the work 
which they performed was intrusted to regular machinery. 

Mr. John Duncan of Glasgow, the inventor of the tambouring 
machinery, was one of those unfortunate individuals who benefit 
their species without benefiting themselves, and who died in the 
meridian of life the victim of poverty and of national ingratitude. 
He conceived the idea of bringing into action a great number of 



456 ANECDOTES, 

needles at the same time, in order to shorten the process by manual 
labor, but he at first was perplexed about the diversification of the 
pattern. This difficulty, however, he soon surmounted by employ, 
ing two forces at right angles to each other, which gave him a new 
force in the direction of the diagonal of the parallelogram, whose 
sides were formed hy the original forces. His first machine was 
veiy imperfect ; but after two years'' study he formed a company, 
at whose expense six improved machines were put in action, and 
who secured the invention by a patent. At this time the idea of 
rendering the machine automatic had scarcely occurred to him ; 
but he afterward succeeded in accomplishing this great object, and 
the tambouring machines were placed under the surveillance of a 
steam-engine. Another patent was taken for these improvements. 
The reader who desires to have a minute account of these improve- 
ments, and of the various parts of the machinery, will be amply 
gratified by perusing the inventor's own account of the machinery 
in the article chain work in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. At 
present it will be sufficient to state, that the mushn to be tamboured 
was suspended vertically in a frame which was capable of being 
moved both in a vertical and a horizontal direction. Sixty or more 
needles lying horizontally occupied a frame in front of the muslin 
web. Each of these working needles, as they are called, was 
attended by a feeding-needle, which, by a circular motion round 
the working-needle, lodged upon the stem of the latter the loop of 
the thread. The sixty needles then penetrated the web, and in 
order that they might return again without injuring the fabric, the 
barb or eye of the needle, which resembled the barb of a fishing- 
hook, was shut by a slider. The muslin web then took a new 
position by means of the machinery that gave it its horizontal and 
vertical motion, so that the sixty needles penetrated it at their next 
movement at another point of the figure or flower. This operation 
went on till sixty flowers were completed. The web was then 
slightly wound up, that the needles might be opposite that part of 
it on which they were to work another row of flowers. 

The flowers were generally at an inch distance, and the rows 
were placed so that the flowers formed what are called diamonds. 
There were seventy-two rows of flowers in a yard, so that in every 
square yard there were nearly four thousand flowers, and in every 
piece of ten yards long forty thousand. The number of loops or 
stitches in a flower varied with the pattern, but on an average 
there were about thirty. Hence the number of stitches in a yard 
were one hundred and twenty thousand, and the number in a 
piece is one million two hundred thousand. The average work 
done in a week by one machine was fifteen yards, or sixty thousand 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC 457 

fltrtr^rs, or one million eight hundred thousand stitches ; and by 
comparing this with the work done by one person with the hand, 
it appears that the machine enabled one person to do the work of 
twenty-four persons. 

Watt's statue turning machinery. — One of the most curious and 
important applications of machinery to the arts which has been 
suggested in modern times was made by the late Mr. Watt, in 
the construction of a machine for copying or reducing statues and 
sculpture of all kinds. The art of multiplying busts and statues, 
by casts in plaster of Paris, has been the means of diffusing a 
knowledge of this branch of the fine arts ; but from the fragile 
nature of the material, the copies thus produced were unfit for 
exposure to the weather, and therefore ill calculated for ornament- 
ing public buildings, or for perpetuating the memory of public 
achievements. A machine, therefore, which is capable of multi- 
plying the labors of the sculptor in the durable materials of mar- 
ble or of brass was a desideratum of the highest* va^ue, and one 
which could have been expected only from a genius of the first 
order. During many years Mr. Watt carried on his labors in 
secret, and he concealed even his intention of constructing such 
a machine. After he had made considerable progress in its exe- 
cution, and had thought of securing his invention by a patent, he 
learned that an ingenious individual in his own neighborhood had 
been long occupied in the same pursuit ; and Mr. Watt informed 
me that he had every reason to believe that this gentleman was 
entirely ignorant of his labors. A proposal was then made that 
the two inventors should combine their talents, and secure the 
privilege by a joint patent ; but Mr. Watt had experienced so fre- 
quently the fatal operation of our patent laws, that he saw many 
difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, and he was un- 
willing, at his advanced age, to embark in a project so extensive, 
and which seemed to require for its successful prosecution all the 
ardor and ambition of a youthful mind. The scheme was there- 
fore abandoned ; and such is the unfortunate operation of our 
patent laws, that the circumstance of two individuals having made 
the same invention has prevented both from bringing it to perfec- 
tion, and conferring a great practical benefit upon their species. 
The machine which Mr. Watt had constructed had actually exe- 
cuted some excellent pieces of work. I have seen in his house 
at Heathfield copies of basso-relievos, and complete statues of a 
small size ; and some of his friends have in their possession other 
specimens of its performance. 

Babbage^s calculating machine. — Of all the machines which 
have been constructed in modern times, the calculating machine 



459 ANECDOTES, 

is doubtless the most extraordinary. Pieces of mechanism for 
performing particular arithmetical operations have been long ago 
constructed, but these bear no comparison either in ingenuity or 
in magnitude to the grand design conceived and neai'ly executed 
by Mr. Babbage. Great as the power of mechanism is known to 
be, yet we venture to say that many of the most intelligent of our 
readers will scarcely admit it to be possible that astronomical 
and navigation tables can be accurately computed by machine- 
ry ; that the machine can itself correct the errors which it 
may commit ; and that the results of its calculations when abso- 
lutely free from error, can be printed off, without the aid of human 
hands, or the operation of human inteUigence. All this, how- 
ever, Mr. Babbage ''s machine can do ; and as I have had the ad- 
vantage of seeing it actually calculate, and of studying its con- 
struction with Mr. Babbage himself, I am able to make the above 
statement on personal observation. The calculating machine now 
constructing under the superintendence of the inventor has been 
executed at the expense of the British government, and is of course 
their property. It consists essentially of two parts — a calculating 
part and a printing part, both of which are necessary to the fulfil- 
ment of Mr. Babbage 's views, for the wdiole advantage would be 
lost if the computations made by the machine were copied by 
human hands and transferred to types by the common process. 
The greater part of the calculating machinery is already con- 
structed, and exhibits workmanship of such extraordinary skill and 
beauty that nothing approaching to it has been witnessed. In 
order to execute it, particularly those parts of the apparatus 
which are dissimilar to any used in ordinary mechanical construc- 
tions, tools and machinery of great expense and complexity have 
been invented and constructed ; and in many instances contrivan- 
ces of singular ingenuity have been resorted to, which cannot 
> fail to prove extensively useful in various branches of the me- 
chanical arts. 

The drawings of this machinery, which form a large part of 
the work, and on which all the contrivance has been bestowed, 
and all the alterations made, cover upwards of four hundred square 
feet of surface, and are executed with extraordinary care and 
precision. 

In so complex a piece of mechanism, in which interrupted 
motions are propagated simultaneously along a great variety of 
trains of mechanism, it might have been supposed that obstruc- 
tions would arise, or even incompatibiUties occur, from the im- 
practicability of foreseeing all the possible combinations of the 
parts ; but this doubt has been entirely removed, by the constant 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 45j 

e*«»ployment of a system of mechanical notation invented by Mr. 
Babbage, which places distinctly in view at every instant the pro- 
gress of motion through all the parts of this or any other ma- 
chine ; and by writing down in tables the times required for all the 
movements, this method renders it easy to avoid all risk of two 
opposite actions arriving at the same instant at any part of the 
engine. 

In the printing part of the machine less progress has been 
made in the actual execution than in the calculating part. The 
cause of this is the greater difficulty of its contrivance, not for 
transferring the computations from the calculating part to the 
copper or other plate destined to receive it, but for giving to the 
plate itself that number and variety of movements which the forms 
adopted in printed tables may call for in practice. 

The practical object of the calculating engine is to compute and 
print a great variety and extent of astronomical and navigation 
tables, which could not be done without enormous intellectual and 
manual labor, and which, even if executed by such labor, could 
not be calculated with the requisite accuracy. Mathematicians, 
astronomers, and navigators do not require to be informed of the 
real value of such tables ; but it may be proper to state, for the 
information of others, that seventeen large folio volumes of lo- 
garithmic tables alone were calculated at an enormous expense 
by the French government ; and that the British government re- 
garded these tables to be of such national value, that they pro- 
posed to the French Board of Longitude to print an abridgment 
of them at the joint expense of the two nations, and offered to 
advance £.5000 for that purpose. Besides logarithmic tables, Mr. 
Babbage ''s machine will calculate tables of the powers and products 
of numbers, and all astronomical tables for determining the posi- 
tions of the sun, moon, and planets ; and the same mechanical 
principles have enabled him to integrate innumerable equations of 
finite differences, that is, when the equation of differences is given, 
he can, by setting an engine, produce at the end of a given time 
any distant term which may be required, or any succession of 
terms commencing at a distant point. 

Besides the cheapness and celerity with which this machine 
will perform its work, the absolute accuracy of the printed results 
deserves especial notice. By peculiar contrivances, any small 
error produced by accidental dust or by any slight inaccuracy in 
one of the wheels, is corrected as soon as it is transmitted to the 
next, and this is done in such a manner as effectually to prevent 
any accumulation of small errors from producing an erroneous 
figure in the result. 



460 ANECDOTES. 



Description of the Automaton Chess-player. 

The Chess Automaton was the sole invention of Wolffgang de 
Kempelen, a Hungarian gentleman, Aulic counsellor to the royal 
chamber of the domains of the emperor in Hungary, and celebra- 
ted for great genius in every department of mechanics. From a 
boy, he had trod in the path of science, and was incontestably of 
first-rate capabilities as a mechanician and engineer Invention 
was his hobby, and he rode it furiously, even to the partial impov- 
erishment of his means. M. de Kempelen, being at Vierma in the 
year 1796, was invited by the empress Maria Theresa to be pres- 
ent at the representation of certain magnetic games, or experiments, 
about to be shown in public at the imperial court, by M. Pelletier> 
a Frenchman. During the exhibition, De Kempelen, being hon- 
ored by a long conversation with his sovereign, was induced casu' 
ally to mention that he thought he could construct a machine, the 
powers of which should be far more surprising, and the deception 
more complete, than all the wonders of magnetism just displayed 
by Pelletier. At this declaration, the curiosity of the empress was 
naturally excited ; and, with true female eagerness for novelty, she 
drew from De Kempelen a promise to gratify her wishes, by pre- 
paring an early and practical proof of his bold assertion. The 
artist returned to his modest dwelling at Presburg, and girded up 
his loins to the task. He kept his word with his imperial mistress ; 
and in the following year presented himself once more at the court 
of Vienna, accompanied by the Automaton Chess-player. Need 
we say that its success was triumphantly complete ? 

The Chess-player was a figure as large as life, clothed in a Turk- 
ish dress, sitting behind a large square chest or box, three feet and a 
half long, two feet deep, and two and a half high. The machine 
ran on castors, and was either seen on the floor when the doors 
of the apartment were thrown open, or was wheeled into the room 
previous to the commencement of the exhibition. The Turkish 
Chess-player sat on a chair fixed to the square chest ; his right 
arm rested on the table, and in the left he held a pipe, which was 
lemoved during the game, as it was with that he made the moves. 
A chess-board eighteen inches square, and bearing the usual num. 
ber of pieces, was placed before the figure. The exhibiter then 
announced to the spectators his intention of showing the mechan- 
ism : and after having unlocked the doors and shown every part 
of the machine, to prove that it was impossible for any one to be 
concealed v\rithin, the Automaton was ready for play An oppo- 
nent having been found among the company, the figure took the 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 461 

first move. At eveiy move made by the Automaton, the wheels 
of the machine were heard in action ; the figure moved its head, 
and seemed to look over every part of the chess-board. When 
it gave its check to its opponent, it shook its head thrice, and only 
twice when it checked the queen. It likewise shook its head when 
a false move was made, replaced the adversary's piece on the 
square from which it was taken, and took the next move itself. 
In general, though not always, it won the game. 

During the progress of the game the exhibiter often stood near 
the machine, and wound it up like a clock after it had made ten 
or twelve moves. At other times he went to a corner of the room, 
as if it were to consult a small square box, which stood open for 
this purpose. 

The chess-playing machine, as thus described, was exhibited 
after its completion in Presburg, Vienna, and Paris, to thousands, 
and in 1783 and 1784 it was exhibited in London and different 
parts of England, without the secret of its movements having been 
discovered. Its ingenious inventor, who was a gentleman and a 
man of education, never pretended that the Automaton itself really 
played the game. On the contrary, he distinctly stated " that the 
machine was a hagatelle, which Was not without merit in point of 
mechanism, but that the effects of it appeared so marvellous only 
from the boldness of the conception, and the fortunate choice of 
the methods adopted for promoting the illusion." 

Upon considering the operations of this Automaton, it must have 
been obvious that the game of chess was performed either by a 
person enclosed in the chest or by the exhibiter himself. The first 
of these hypotheses was ingeniously excluded by the display of the 
interior of the machine ; for as every part contained more or less 
machinery, the spectator invariably concluded that the smallest 
dwarf could not be accommodated within, and this idea was 
strengthened by the circumstance that no person of this descrip- 
tion could be discovered in the suite of the exhibiter. Hence the 
conclusion was drawn that the exhibiter actuated the machine either 
by mechanical means conveyed through its feet, or by a magnet 
concealed in the body of the exhibiter. That mechanical com- 
munication was not formed between the exhibiter and the figure 
was obvious from the fact that no such communication was visible, 
and that it was not necessary to place the machine on any partic. 
ular part of the floor. Hence the opinion became very prevalent 
that the agent was a magnet ; but even this supposition was exclu- 
ded, for the exhibiter allowed a strong and well-armed loadstone 
to be placed upon the machine during the progress of the game : 
had the moving power been a magnet, the whole action of the ma- 

20* 



462 ANECDOTES, 

chine would have been deranged by the approximation of a load 
stone concealed in the pockets of any of the spectators. 

The Chess-player continued the wonder of all Europe for a 
period of over sixty years, without the secret of its movement 
being divulged, though many were the attempts to unravel the 
mystery. It was exhibited in all the courts of Europe, and even 
kings condescended to try a game. Among other monarchs whose 
curiosity was excited was Eugene Beauharnois, then king of Ba- 
varia, who bought the machine in order to ascertain the secret. 
Dismissing his courtiers from the room, the king then locked the 
door, and every precaution was taken to ensure his acquiring a sole 
knowledge of the hidden enigma. The prince was left alone with 
the demonstrator : the latter then unhesitatingly and in silence 
flung open simultaneously all the doors of the chest ; and prince 
Eugene saw — what he saw ! • 

Napoleon, himself a chess-player, honored the Automaton by 
playing a game in person against it. The contest was marked by 
an interesting circumstance. Half a dozen moves had barely 
been made, when Bonaparte, purposely, to test the powers of the 
machine, committed a false move ; the Automaton bowed, repla- 
ced the offending piece, and motioned to Napoleon that he should 
move correctly. Highly amused, after a few minutes the French 
chief again played an illegal move. This time the Automaton 
without hesitation snatched off the piece which had moved falsely, 
confiscated it, and made his own move. Bonaparte laughed, and 
for the third time, as if to put the patience of his antagonist to a 
severe trial, played a false move. The Automaton raised his arm, 
swept the whole of the pieces from the board, and declined contin- 
uing the game ! 

While the machine was exhibiting in England, in 1785, a Mr. 
Philip Thicknesse printed a pamphlet in which he denounced the 
Automaton as a piece of imposture in no measured terms. He as- 
sumed that a child was confined in the chest, from ten to fourteen 
years of age, who played the game ; but added, absurdly enough, 
that Master Johnny saw the state of the board reflected from a 
looking-glass in the ceiling. He had previously discovered a case 
of curious imposture worth quoting. 

" Forty years since," writes Thicknesse, " I found three hun- 
dred people assembled to see, at a shilling each, a coach go with- 
out horses. Mr. Quin, the Duke of Athol, and many persons 
present, were angry with me for saying that it was trod round by 
a man within the hinder wheel ; but a small paper of snuff put into 
the wheel, soon convinced all around that it could not only move, 
but sneeze, too, like a Christian P'' We wonder how De Kempelen 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 463 

would have met a proposition to throw an ounce or two of snuff 
upon speculation among his springs and levers ? 

Notwithstanding all the attempts, the secret of the Automaton 
Chess-player was never solved, until one of the persons implicated 
in the fraud turned king's evidence. Several persons almost hit 
the mark ; but none fairly planted his arrow in the gold. The man 
who really played the Chess- Automaton was concealed in the chest 
Such, in half a dozen words, is the sum and substance of the whole 
truth of the contrivance ; but the manner in which his conceal- 
ment was managed is as curious as it is ingenious. 

He sat on a low species of stool, moving on castors, or wheels, 
and had every faciUty afforded him of changing and shifting his 
position, like an eel. While one part of the machine was shown 
to the pubhc, he took refuge in another ; now lying down, now 
kneeUng ; placing his body in all sorts of positions, studied be- 
forehand, and all assumed in regular rotation, hke the a b c of a 
catechism. The interior pieces of clock-work — the wheels and 
make-weight apparatus, were all equally moveable ; and additional 
assistance was thus yielded to the fraud. Even the trunk of the 
Automaton was used as a hiding-place, in its turn, for part of the 
player's body. A very short amount of practice, by way of re- 
hearsal, was found sufficient to meet the purposes of the occasion ; 
and one regular order being observed by the two confederates as 
to the opening the machine, a mistake rarely or never occurred. 
Should any thing go radically wrong, the prisoner had the means 
of telegraphing his jailer, and the performance could be sus- 
pended. 

" But," says the reader, " what becomes of the vast apparatus 
of wheels, springs, levers, and caskets ? Why did Maelzel require 
to Avind up his man of wood and brass ?" The answer is short. 
These things were the dust thrown in the eyes of the pubUc. The 
mind of the gaping spectator dwelt on the sound of the springs 
and wheels, and was thus diverted from the main question. Every 
adjunct that intellect could devise was skilfully superadded, to en- 
hance the marvel. The machine was railed off, for a now tolera- 
bly clear reason ; and a lighted candle having been first introduced 
into the body of the Automaton, to show the interior, at a moment 
nothing could be seen, was purposely left burning close at hand, in 
order to prevent any inopportune rays of light flashing from the 
interior, where a second candle was necessarily in process of 
ignition. 

The director of the Automaton was quietly seated, then, in the 
interior. All public inspection over, and the doors being safely 
closed, he had only to make himself as comfortable as he could 



464 ANECDOTES, 

under the existing circumstances. A wax candle supplied him with 
light, which the candle burning outside prevented being observed ; 
and due measures were taken that he should not die for want of 
oxygen. Whether he was furnished with meat, and wine, these 
deponents say not. 

To direct the arm of the Automaton, the concealed confederate 
had but to set in motion a simple sort of spring, which caused its 
fingers to grasp the man he chose to play, and guide it to the per- 
formance of its task. To make the figure articulate check, nod 
its head, or perform other fooleries, similar strings, or wires, re- 
quired but a pull. It must be observed, that care was taken that 
the performance should never last so long as to fatigue the player 
to exhaustion. We have before remarked, that the Automaton''s 
chess-board and men were placed in public view before him. The 
concealed player possessed in the interior a second, and smaller 
board, with the men pegged into it, as if for travelling. On this 
he repeated the move played by the antagonist of the Automaton, 
and on this he likewise concocted his scheme of action, and made 
his answer before playing it on the Automaton''s own board. 

A very interesting and ingenious part of the secret consists in 
the manner in which the move played by the stranger was com- 
municated to the concealed artist ; and on this, in point of reality, 
turned the whole thing. A third chess-board, blank, with the 
squares numbered according to the usual mode of chess notation, 
was fixed, as it were, in the ceiling of the interior ; thus forming 
the reverse of the table on which the Automaton really appeared 
to play. Now the men with which the Automaton conducted his 
game, were all duly magnetized at the foot ; and the move being 
made above, the magnets on the pieces moved set in motion cer- 
tain knobs, or metallic indices, adapted to each square of the board 
on the reverse ; and thus was the requisite knowledge of the move 
played communicated to Jack-in-the-box. To illustrate this more 
clearly would require the aid of engravings ; but we have given 
the explanation at least sufficiently distinct for our pui-pose. The 
real Simon Pure, shut up in his cell, saw by the light of his taper 
the metallic knobs or indices above, vibrating, so as to mark the 
move just played. He repeated this move on his own little board, * 
calculated his answering " coup,'''' and guided the Automaton's fin- 
gers, in order to its being duly perfoi'med. The happy association 
of magnetism with the figure, thus hit upon by De Kempelen, was 
probably suggested to him by the magnetic experiments of Pelle- 
tier, at the court of the empress. 

Tedious as a " twice told tale," is the dwelling too long on the 
I'eading of a riddle. When known, its solution seems simple 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 465 

enough ; but the difficulty lies in its original construction. The 
Automaton Chess-player affords strong evidence of the fallibility 
of human judgment and human testimony. Thousands of Individ- 
uals have seen its performance, who vi^ould have had no scruple 
about taking their oaths that they had viewed the whole of the en- 
gine at once. In this respect, the ingenuity displayed by its origi- 
nal constructor is above praise. Man loves so to be duped ! 

The history of the Chess-playing Automaton, subsequently to 
1820, may be shortly summed up. Having travelled over the 
greater part of Europe, it was transported to the United States of 
America, where for a time it proved that the natives of the New 
World were made of the same stuff as their elder brethren. Jon- 
athan dropped his dollars freely ; and the calculating spirit of the 
land of stripes and stars, slumbered beneath the spell of MaelzePs 
magic. A German accompanied it, as holding the important post 
of invisible demonstrator, ordinary and extraordinary. 

Carrying out the same principle of conduct, the Automaton sub- 
sequently took to playing whist, as well as chess. For some years, 
latterly, the figure has lain in a state of inglorious repose in a 
warehouse at New Orleans ; and there we leave him, fearing the 
word resurgam may not be applied to its escutcheon. A similar 
bubble once blown becomes foi-ever exploded in its pristine form. 

Many must be the adventures of the Automaton, lost, unhappi- 
ly, to the knowledge of man. A being that kept so much good 
company, during so long a space of time, must, indeed, have gone 
through an infinity of interesting events. In this age of autobiog- 
raphy, when so many wooden men and women have the assurance 
to thrust their personal memoirs on the world, a book on the life 
and adventures of the Automaton Chess-player would surely be 
received with proportionate interest. We ourselves recollect once 
hearing some amusing anecdotes of the thing from Mouret him- 
self, the individual who for many years was concealed within the 
machine. Our limits permit our quoting but a couple of these 
logwood reminiscences, which we quote by way of wind-up. 

In a journey once through a remote part of Germany, the Au- 
tomaton set up his tent in a small town, where a professor of 
legerdemain being already in possession of the field, a clash between 
the interests of the two parties was unavoidable. The Automaton, 
as the monster of the late arrival, naturally put the conjurer on 
the shelf; and the poor Hocus-pocus, in the energies developed by 
famine, conversant as he was with the art he professed, discovered 
his rivaPs seci'et the first time he witnessed the show. Backed by 
an accomplice, the conjurer raised a sudden cry of " Fire ! fire .'" 
The spectators began to rush forth in alarm ; and the Automaton, 



466 ANECDOTES, 

violently impelled by the struggles of its inward man, suddenly 
rolled head over heels on the floor. Maelzel flew to the rescue 
and dropped the curtain, before terror had quite driven the impris- 
oned imp to burs-t its chain, and rush to daylight. 

On another occasion, Messrs. Maelzel and Mouret were exhibit, 
ing the Automaton at^Amsterdain, when it happened that the 
former was indebted in a considerable sum of money, relatively 
speaking, to his agent for his services. In fact, Maelzel, acting 
on the philosophical aphorism of " base is the slave who pays," 
had not given poor Mouret a shilling for a twelvemonth ; and the 
latter found that, although a spirit of darkness, he could not live 
upon air. Mouret was lodged and boarded, but wanted also to eat. 
It so chanced, under these circumstances, that one day the king of 
Holland sent a messenger to engage the chief part of the exhibi- 
tion-hall, that morning, for himself and court ; and kindly seconded 
his royal command by the sum of three thousand florins, sent by 
the same courier. Maelzel proclaims the good tidings ; a splen- 
did breakfast is prepared ; Mouret is pressed to eat and drink ; and 
the parties are naturally delighted at the pleasing prospect of check- 
mating royalty. Maelzel hastens to arrange every preparation for 
receiving the Dutch monarch with " all the honors." The exhibition 
was to commence at half-past twelve ; but, although noon had 
struck on every clock in the city, Mouret was not at his post. 
Maelzel inquires the reason, and is told that Mouret has got a 
fever, and gone to bed. The German flew to the Frenchman''s 
chamber, and found half the story at least to be correct ; for there, 
sure enough, lay Mouret, snugly tucked up in the blankets. 

" What is the meaning of this ?" 

" I have a fever." 

" But you were very well just now ?" 

"Yes ; but this disorder — O del! — has come on suddenly." 

" But the king is coming." 

" Let him go back again !" 

" But what shall I say to him ?" 

" Tell him — mon Bieu! — the Automaton has a sore throat." 

" Can you jest at such a moment ? Consider the money I have 
received, and that we shall have the saloon full." 

" Well, Mynheer Maelzel, you can return the money." 

" Pray, pray, get up !" 

" I cannot." 

" What can I do to restore you ?" 

" Pay me the fifteen hundred francs you owe me .'" 

" This evening V 

"No; pay me now — ^this moment, or I leave not my bed!" 




CHINESE IRRIGATION WHEEL. 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 469 

The case was urgent, and the means of restoration to health, 
however desperate, must be adopted. With a heavy sigh, Mael- 
zel told down the cash ; and never had the Automaton played with 
so much inward unction as he did that morning. The king declin- 
ed compromising royalty by entering the lists himself; but placed 
his minister-of-war in the opposition chair, and graciously conde- 
scended to offer his royal advice in each critical situation of the 
pieces. The coalition was beaten, and the surrounding courtiers, 
of course, attributed defeat solely to the bad play of the minister, 
of- war ! 



Chinese Bamboo Irrigation-wheel. 

The Chinese irrigation- wheel, which is turned by the current of 
the stream, varies from twenty to thirty feet or more in height, 
according to the elevation of the bank ; and when once erected, a 
constant supply of water is poured by it into a trough, on the sum- 
mit of the river''s side, and conducted in channels to all parts of the 
sugar plantations. One is at a loss which most to admire, the 
cleverness and efficiency, or the cheapness and simplicity of the 
contrivance. 

The props of the wheel are of timber, and the axis is a cylinder 
of the same material ; but every other portion of the machine ex- 
hibits some modification or other of the bamboo, even to the fasten- 
ings and bindings, for not a single nail or piece of metal enters into 
its composition. The wheel consists of two rims of unequal diame- 
ter, of which the one next the bank is rather the least. " This 
double wheel," observes Staunton, " is connected with the axis by 
sixteen or eighteen spokes of bamboo, obliquely inserted near each 
extremity of the axis, and crossing each other at about two-thirds 
of their length. They are there strengthened by a concentric 
circle, and fastened afterwards to the rims ; the spokes inserted in 
the interior extremity of the axis (or that next to the bank,) reach- 
ing the outer rim, and those proceeding from the exterior extremity 
of the same axis reaching the inner and smaller rim. Between 
the rims and the crossings of the spokes is woven a kind of close 
basket-work, serving as ladle-boards," which are acted upon by 
the current of the stream, and turn the wheel round. 

The whole diameter of the wheel being something greater than 
the height of the banlc, about sixteen or twenty hollow bamboos, 
closed at one end, are fastened to the circumference, to act as 
buckets. These, however, are not loosely suspended, but firmly 
attached with their open mouths towards the inner or smaller rim 



470 ANECDOTES, 

of the wheel, at such an inclination, that when dipping below the 
water theii* mouths are slightly raised from the horizontal position ; 
as they rise through the air their position approaches the upright 
sufficiently near to keep a considerable portion of the contents 
within them ; but, when they have reached the summit of the revo- 
lution, the mouths become enough depressed to pour the water into 
a large trough placed on a level with the bank to receive it. The 
impulse of the stream on the ladle-boards at the circumference of 
the wheel, with a radius of about fifteen feet, is sufficient to over- 
come the resistance arising from the difference of weight between 
the ascending and descending, or loaded and unloaded, sides of 
the wheel. This impulse is increased, if necessary, at the parti- 
cular spot where each wheel is erected, by damming the stream, 
and even raising the level of the water where it turns the wheel. 
When the supply of water is not required over the adjoining fields, 
the trough is merely turned aside or removed, and the wheel con. 
tinues its stately motion, the water from the tubes pouring back 
again down its sides. These wheels extend, on the river Kan-keang, 
from the neighborhood of the pass to a considerable distance down 
its stream towards the lake, and they were so numerous that we 
never saw less than thirty in a day. It is calculated that one of 
them will raise upwards of three hundred tons of water in the four- 
and-twenty hours. Viewed merely in regard to their object, the 
Persian wheel, and the machines used for raising water in the 
Tyrol, bear some resemblance to the one just described, but, as 
observed by Staunton, " they are vastly more expensive, less sim- 
ple in construction, as well as less ingenious in contrivance." 



Discovery of Gunpowder, and Inventions arising therefrom. 

It is not known with accuracy at what time gunpowder was dis- 
covered. The Chinese were acquainted with it at a very early 
period. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
one hundred and fifty years after the invention of cannon, that iron 
balls were used. Muskets were not used until the year 1521. The 
Spaniards first armed their foot soldiers in this manner. They 
used matchlocks : firelocks were not used until the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, — that is, one hundred and eighty years 
after muskets were invented. Even then, the great Marshal Saxe 
had so little confidence in the efficacy of a flint, that he ordered a 
matchlock to be added to the lock with a flint, lest the flint should 
miss fire : such is the force of habit on the human mind. Bayonets 
derive their name from the town of Bayonne, in France, where 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 471 

they were introduced about 1673. They came in use among the 
English grenadiers in the reign of James the Second. Many such 
are yet to be seen in tlie small armoiy at the Tower of London. 
The use of them, fastened to the muzzle of the firelock, was also 
a French improvement, first adopted about 1690. It was accom- 
panied in 1693, at the battle of Marseille, in Piedmont, by a dread- 
ful slaughter, and its use universally adopted by the rest of Europe 
in the war of the succession. 



A few Remarks on the Relation which subsists ietween a Machine 

and its Model. 

The following remarks by Edward Sang, a teacher of mathe- 
matics in Edinburgh, are very interesting, as demonstrating the 
relation between a machine and its model, — a subject which is, 
perhaps, not generally well understood : — 

" At first sight, a well-constructed model presents a perfect re- 
presentation of the disposition and proportion of the parts of a 
machine, and of their mode of action. 

" Misled by the alluring appearance, one is apt, without entering 
minutely into the inquiry, also to suppose that the performance ./f 
a model is, in all cases, commensurate with that of the machine 
which it is formed to represent. Ignorant of the inaccuracy of 
such an idea, too many of our ablest mechanicians and best work, 
men waste their time and abilities on contrivances which, thouj>h 
they perform well on the small scale, must, from their very uatuio, 
fail when enlarged. Were such people acquainted with the mode 
of computing the effects, or had they a knowledge of natural phi- 
losophy, sufficient to enable them to understand the basis on which 
such calculations are founded, we should see fewer crude and im- 
practicable schemes prematurely thrust upon the attentiou ol lU«.> 
public. This knowledge, however, they are too apt to regard as 
unimportant, or as difficult of attainment. They are startlefi t»\ 
the absurd distinction which has been drawn between theory a.i> 1 
practice, as if theory were other than a digest of the results o< 
experience ; or, if they overcome this prejudice, and resohv 'c 
dive into the arcana of philosophy, they are bewildered amotii; 
names and signs, having begun the subject at the wrong en^i 
That the attainment of such knowledge is attended with difficult\ 
is certain, but it is with such difficulty only as can be overcome 
by properly directed application. It would be, indeed, preparing 
disappointment to buoy them up with the idea, that knowledge, 
even of the most trivial importance, can be acquired without labor. 



472 ANECDOTES, 

Yet it may not be altogether unuseful, for the sake both of those 
who are already, and of those who are not, acquainted with these 
principles, to point out the more prominent causes, on account of 
which the performance of no model can, on any occasion, be con- 
sidered as representative of that of the machine. Such a notice 
will have the effect of directing the attention, at least, to this im- 
portant subject. In the present state of the arts, the expense of 
constructing a full-sized instrument is, in almost every instance, 
beyond what its projector would feel inclined, or even be able, to 
incur. The formation of a model is thus universally resorted to, 
as a prelude to the attempt on the large scale. An inquiry, then, 
into the relation which a model bears to the perfect instrument, 
can hardly fail to carry along with it the advantage of forming a 
tolerable guide, in estimating the real benefit which a contiivance 
is likely to confer upon society. 

" In the following paper I propose to examine the effect of a 
change of scale on the strength and on the friction of machines, 
and, at the same time, to point out that adherence to the strictest 
principles which is apparent in all the works of nature, and of 
which I mean to avail myself in fortifying my argument. 

" Previous, however, to entering on the subject-proper, it must 
be remarked that, when we enlarge the scale according to which 
any instrument is constructed, its surface and its bulk are enlarged 
in much higher ratios. If, for example, the linear dimensions of 
an instrument be all doubled, its surface will be increased four and 
its soUdity eight-fold. Were the linear dimensions increased ten 
times, the superficies would be enlarged one hundred, and the so- 
lidity one thousand times. On these facts, the most important 
which geometry presents, my after-remarks are mostly to be 
founded. 

" All machines consist of moveable parts, sliding or turning on 
others, which are bound together by bands, or supported by props. 
To the frame- work I shall first direct my attention. 

" In the case of a simple prop, destined to sustain the mere 
weight of some part of the machine, the strength is estimated at 
so many hundred weights per square inch of cross section. Sup- 
pose that, in the model, the strength of the prop is sufficient for 
double the load put on it, and let us examine the effect of an en- 
largement, ten-fold, of the scale according to which the instrument 
is constructed. By such an enlargement, the strength of the prop 
would be augmented one hundred times ; it would be able to bear 
two hundred loads such as that of the model, but then the weight 
to be put on it would be one thousand times that of the small ma- 
chine, so that the prop in the large machine would be able to bear 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 473 

only the fifth part of the load to be put on it. The machine, then, 
would fall to pieces by its own weight. 

" Here we have one example of the erroneous manner in which 
a model represents the performance of a large instrument. The 
supports of small objects ought clearly to be smaller in proportion 
than the supports of large ones. Architects, to be sure, are accus- 
tomed to enlarge and to reduce in proportion ; but nature, whose 
structures possess infinitely more symmetry, beauty, and variety, 
than those of which art can boast, is content to change her pro- 
portions at each change of size. Let us conceive an animal having 
the proportions of an elephant and only the size of a mouse ; not 
only would the Limbs of such an animal be too strong for it, they 
would also be so unwieldy that it would have no chance among 
the more nimble and better proportioned creatures of that size. 
Reverse the process, and enlarge the mouse to the size of an ele- 
phant, and its limbs, totally unable to sustain the weight of its 
immense body, would scarcely have strength to disturb its position 
even when recumbent. 

" The very same remarks apply to that case in which the weight, 
instead of compressing, distends the support. The chains of 
Trinity Pier are computed to be able to bear nine times the load 
put on them. But if a similar structure were formed of ten times 
the linear dimensions, the strength of the new chain would be one 
hundred times the strength of that at Trinity, while the load put 
upon it would be one thousand times greater ; so that the new 
structure would possess only nine-tenths of the strength necessary 
to support itself. Of how Uttle importance, then, in bridge build- 
ing, whether a model constructed on a scale of perhaps one to a 
hundred support its own weight ! Yet, on such grounds, a proposi- 
tion for throwing a bridge of two arches across the Forth, at 
Queensferry, was founded. Putting out of view the road-way and 
passengers altogether, the weight of the chain alone would have 
torn it to pieces. The larger species of spiders spin threads much 
thicker, in comparison with the thickness of their own bodies, than 
those spun by the smaller ones. And, as if sensible that the whole 
energies of their systems would be expended in the frequent repro- 
duction of such massy webs, they choose the most secluded spots; 
while the smaller species, dreading no inconvenience from a fre- 
quent renewal of theirs, stretch them from branch to branch, and 
often from tree to tree. I have often been astonished at the pro- 
digious lengths of these filaments, and have mused on the immense 
improvement which must take place in science, and in strength of 
materials too, ere we could, individually, undertake works of such 
comparative magnitude. 



474 ANECDOTES, 

" When a beam gives support laterally, its strength is proper 
tioned to its breadth, and to the square of its depth conjointly. If, 
then, such a beam were enlarged ten times in each of its linear 
dimensions, its ability to sustain a weight placed at its extremity 
would, on account of the increased distance from the point of in- 
sertion, be only one hundred times augmented, but the load to be 
put upon it would be one thousand times greater ; and thus, al. 
though the parts of the model be quite strong enough, we can- 
not thence conclude that those of the enlarged machine will 
be so. 

" It may thus be stated as a general principle, that, in similar 
machines, the strengths of the parts vary as the square, while the 
weights laid on them vary as the cube of the corresponding linear 
dimension. 

" This fact cannot be too firmly fixed in the minds of machine 
makers ; it ought to be taken into consideration even on the 
smallest change of scale, as it will always conduce either to the 
sufficiency or to the economy of a structure. To enlarge or di- 
minish the parts of a machine all in the same proportion, is to 
commit a deliberate blunder. Let us compare the wing of an in- 
sect with that of a bird : enlarge a midge till its whole weight be 
equal to that of the sea-eagle, and, great as that enlargement must 
be, its wing will scarcely have attained the thickness of writing 
paper ; the falcon would feel rather awkward with wings of such 
tenuity. The wings of a bird, even when idle, form a conspicuous 
part of the whole animal ; but there are insects which unfold, from 
beneath two scarcely perceived covers, wings many times more 
extensive than the whole surface of their bodies. 

" The larger animals are never supported laterally ; their limbs 
are always in a position nearly vertical : as we descend in the 
scale of size the lateral support becomes more frequent, till we 
find whole tribes of insects resting on Umbs laid almost horizon- 
tally. The slightest consideration will convince any one that 
lateral or horizontal limbs would be quite inadequate to support 
the weight of the larger animals. Conceive a spider to increase 
till his body weighed as much as that of a man, and then fancy 
one of us exhibiting feats of dexterity with such locomotive instru- 
ments as the spider would then possess ! 

" The objects which I have hitherto compared have been re- 
mote, that the comparisons might be the more striking ; but the 
same principles may be exhibited by the contrast of species the 
most nearly allied, or of individuals even of the same species 
The larger species of spiders, for instance, rarely have their legs 
so much extended as the smaller ones ; or, to take an example 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 475 

from the larger animals, the form of the Shetland pony is very 
different from that of the London dray-horse. 

" How interesting it is to compare the different animals, and to 
trace the gradual change of form which accompanies each in- 
crease of size ! In the smaller animals, the strength is, as it were, 
redundant, and there is room for the display of the most elaborate 
ornament. How complex or how beautiful are the myriads of 
insects which float in the air, or which cluster on the foliage ! 
Gradually the larger of these become more simple in their struc- 
ture, their ornaments less profuse. The structure of the birds is 
simpler and more uniform, that of the quadrupeds still more so. 
As we approach the larger quadrupeds, ornament, and then ele- 
gance, disappear. This is the law in the works of nature, and this 
ought to be the law among the works of art. 

" Among one class of animals, indeed, it may be said that this 
law IS reversed. We have by no means a general classification 
of the fishes ; but, among those with which we are acquainted, we 
do not perceive such a prodigious change of form Here, how- 
ever, the animal has not to support its own weight ; and whatever 
increase may take place in the size of the animal, a like increase 
takes place in the buoyancy of the fluid in which it swims. Many 
of the smaller aquatic animals exhibit the utmost simplicity of 
structure ; but we know too little of the nature of their functions 
to draw any useful conclusions from this fact." 



Shoes and Buckles. 

The business of a shoemaker is of great antiquity. The instru- 
ment for cleaning hides, the shoemaker''s bristle added to the yarn, 
and his knife, were in use as early as the twelfth century. He 
was accustomed to hawk his goods, and it is conjectured that there 
was a separate trade for annexing the soles. The Romans in 
classical times wore cork soles in their shoes, to secure the feet 
from water, especially in winter ; and as high heels were not then 
introduced, the Roman ladies who wished to appear taller than they 
had been formed by nature, put plenty of cork under them. The 
streets of Rome in the time of Domitian were blocked up by cob- 
bier's stalls, which he therefore caused to be removed. In the 
middle ages shoes were cleaned by washing with a sponge ; and 
oil, soap, and grease were the substitutes for blacking. Buckles 
were worn on shoes in the fourteenth century. In an Irish abbey 
a human skeleton was found with marks of buckles on the shoes. 
In England they became fashionable many years before the reign 



4ip ANECDOTES, 



of Queen Maiy ; thj laboring people wore them of copper; other 
persons had them of silver, or copper gilt ; not long after, shoe 
roses came in. Buckles revived before the revolution of 1689, 
remained fashionable till after the French revolution in 1789, and 
finally became extinct before the close of the eighteenth century. 



The Croton Aqueduct. 

Some of our readers may have had their curiosity excited with 
respect to the great aqueduct now in construction for the supply 
of New York with water. The following description of the manner 
in which the work is performed, with the illustrative cut connected 
with it, will prove acceptable. We have been indebted for them 
to Mr. Miner, editor of the Railroad Journal, from whom we have 
before received several similar favors. 

The ground on which New York stands consists chiefly of loose 
sand, intermixed in many places with coarse gravel and boulders, 
or roundish stones of different sizes, apparently brought by a flood 
of water from some primitive region. Hornblend rock predomi- 
nates. Granite and gneiss rocks are found in original masses in 
some parts. Long Island consists of sand and loose stones, with- 
out a trace of any fixed rock, except at Hurlgate, and perhaps at 
one or two other places. 

Primitive rocks and soils generally furnish good water ; and the 
springs of this city, though few and public, are abundant, and 
many of them were originally good. The increase of population, 
however, has caused the deterioration of the water : for where 
the rain once fell on fields of grass or groves of wood, it now 
meets with crowded streets or narrow lots occupied by crowded 
habitations, and contracts impurities which it carries with it far 
down into the sands where the springs flow. Some of the wells 
in the middle and upper parts of the city, which yielded excellent 
water within the memory of living inhabitants, have become so 
much affected in later years, that many of the people purchase 
drinking water at a penny a pailful, of men who bring it in cUrts 
from springs yet urjtainted by the encroaching city. As the water 
of the wells is unfit for washing as well as for drinking, every 
family requires a cistern ; and thus it has been thought desirable, 
for many years, that an abundant supply of good water should be 
obtained for the city. 

The Water Works in Chambers street, under the direction of 
the Manha^ttan Company, have furnished, for some years, water of 
anr inferior quality to the inhabitants of many streets in the lower 






DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 



477 



parts of the city, at certain prices ; and water for the use of fire- 
engines has since been provided, in a large reservoir on the height 
of ground, from vi'hich it is distributed in hydrants to different dis- 
tricts. It was proposed, some years ago, to obtain a supply from 
several ponds in the town of Rye : but, after an examination, the 
Croton river was preferred, although the distance was great, the 
loute obstructed by serious impediments, and the work tediou. 
and very expensive. The friends of the enterprise, however, 
rightly judged, that nothing could be so expensive to the health 
and convenience of the inhabitants, and therefore in fact so great 
a pecuniary loss to the city treasury, as the longer neglect of the 
great work. It was therefore commenced ; and about five thou- 
sand men have sometimes been employed on it at one time. — 
Family Visiter. 




Section of the Croton Aqueduct. 

Description of the mode of constructing the Croton Aqueduct, 
from the American Railroad Journal. — The materials used are 
good building-stone, of the proper degree of hardness and dura- 
bility, free from all metals, particularly iron. Gneiss is preferred 
to any other, both because it is more plentiful and more easily 
M'orkcd. Some limestone is also used, but not until it has the 



478 ANECDOTES, 

express permit of the Resident Engineer. Brick is the next ma- 
terial ; it is required to be from the centre of the kiln, such as is 
thoroughly burnt, free from lime or any other impurity, and to 
possess a clear ringing sound when struck. The worst accepted 
are such as cost from five to seven dollars a thousand. Next is 
the cement, from which the concrete and masonry generally are 
formed. The commissioners^ specifications are very explicit re- 
lative to the manufacture of this article, requiring that the name 
of the manufacturer should be known ; that the cement shall not 
have been made more than six months before being used ; that it 
shall be transported from the factory in water-tight casks ; and, 
in addition to all this, that each parcel or cargo received shall be 
thoroughly tested, either by officers appointed for the purpose, or 
by the Resident Engineer himself These are the principal ma- 
terials, stone, brick, and cement. The stone is required to be 
always clean, and in hot weather, kept wet, and when laid in the 
wall requiring mortar, it must " swim" in the cement — that is, 
when the stone is lifted up from its bed, no point or surface of the 
stone must touch the stone below it, each stone must be surrounded 
by cement. When the weather is hot, the top of the wall must 
be kept moist, and in cold weather all the masonry must be 
covered so effectually, as to protect it perfectly. The brick must 
be laid true and even, allowing three-eighths of an inch joint, or 
thereabouts. In hot weather, they are to be soaked in water, and 
to be kept wet while being laid. The cement is mixed in differ- 
ent proportions, according to the work required. For stone work, 
the proportions are one part of cement to three of sand, (the sand 
to be medium size, sharp grained and clean — river sand is ac- 
cepted.) For brick work, the proportions are one of cement to 
two of sand ; for concrete, one part of cement, three of sand, and 
three of clean building-stone, broken about as fine as that used 
for Macadamizing. Concrete is used for forming artificial founda- 
tions, is mixed with as little water as possible, aad when laid in 
any part of the work, is left undisturbed forty-eight hours ; at the 
expiration of this time it has become so hard, that a blow with a 
pickaxe will not break it : it becomes quite a rock. 

The aqueduct, maintaining a uniform descent, requires that in 
places the earth should be cut away, and in crossing valleys, that 
they should be filled up. In the former case, the sides of the cut 
are left standing at a slope of one half to one ; that is, if the per- 
pendicular height of the side of the cut be six feet, it will fall from 
directly above its base three feet. It is one-half horizontal to one 
vertical. The base of the cut is always thirteen feet wide. Pegs, 
showing the bottom of the side wails, and of the reversed arch in 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 479 

brick, are given by the engineers, who, at the same time, deter 
mine the centres, if necessary, from these data. The builder lays 
a small layer of concrete, at least three inches, whose top shall be 
as high as the top of the peg just set. On the concrete he pro- 
ceeds to build the side walls of the aqueduct. You may see the 
dimensions by the plan better than I could tell you. The side 
walls being done, they are filled in behind them, up to the top, 
with earth, to prevent strain or damage, also to act as a support, 
and cover up the work as fast as possible. Then the concrete is 
laid for the bottom of the reversed arch in brick, by means of 
moulds placed every ten feet apart. When thoroughly set, the 
brick work is commenced. Selecting the best brick (and it has 
all been most thoroughly inspected,) the reversed arch is laid, and 
then the "brick-facing" — that is, facing the inside of the wall with 
brick, when carried up to the top of the wall. The upper arch, 
consisting of two ring courses (with occasional headers,) is thrown ; 
the arch is covered with a thick coating of plaster, and the angle 
made by the top of the wall and arch filled with the same kind of 
masonry as the side walls ; and then the aqueduct is done. 

You will perceive it to be a long brick vault stretching from 
New York to Croton, ascending at the rate of thirteen inches in 
a mile. The earth removed in the excavation is then " back filled" 
over the aqueduct until it is four feet deep over the crown of the 
arch, level on top, and ten or eight feet wide, and the sides slope 
one and a half to one, (as you see in the figure.) When the 
ground is too steep, a " protection wall" is introduced, (see draw- 
ing;) this is laid dry, i. e., without mortar, and made to slope one 
half to one, as in the drawing, or one to one, at an angle of forty- 
five degrees. So much for the aqueduct " in open cutting in 
earth." When a valley is crossed, a heavy wall fifteen feet wide 
on top, with sides sloping one-twelfth to one, must be built. They 
are large stones firmly imbedded in small broken ones. On the 
top of this wall, a foot of concrete is placed ; the aqueduct, as usual, 
is built on that. As water passes through valleys, a stone passage 
way, called " a culvert," is made of suitable dimensions. 



Cugnofs Steam Carriage. 

The improvements of the mechanism of the steam engine, 
stimulated many projects for adapting its agency to other pur- 
poses besides that of raising water ; and the scheme of John 
Theophilus Cugnot, a native of Void, in Lorraine, is meritorious 
for its novelty and its successful practical development. In his 
youth, Cugnot served in Germany as an engineer. Passing after- 



480 ANECDOTES, 

wards into the service of Prince Charles of Lorraine, he resided 
at Brussels, and gave lessons in the military art, with the theory 
and practice of which he was profoundly acquainted. The in- 
vention of a light gun procured him the notice of the Compte de 
Saxe, to whom, about 1763, he exhibited a model of a carriage 
moved by a steam engine, instead of horses. He afterwards 
lived at Paris, and through the recommendation of the Compte, oh- 
tained, in 1769, the patronage of the Due de Choiseul, then 
minister at war. He was now enabled, at the public expense, to 
construct a large carriage moved by a steam engine, similar to 
that of the model he had shown years previously. At the first 
trials in 1770 of this novel vehicle, before a numerous assemblage 
of officers and professional persons, its movements were so violent 
as to overturn a portion of a wall that was opposed to its progress. 
This, unfortunately, produced an opinion, that in consequence of 
the uncertainty of obtaining proper mechanical control, its motion 
would be of small use in practice. The project was therefore aban- 
doned, and the experimental machine was deposited in the museum 
of the Arsenal, to become a point of reference to the epigrammatist, 
and a memorial of the blasted hopes of the accomplished author. 
Cugnot's genius expanded half a century too soon, either for its 
value being known, or its efforts cherished. 

At a later period of life, his means of subsistence having fallen 
into decay, the various services he had rendered to the public 
were thought to entitle him to a reward from the state. The re- 
volution sweeping away even this pitiful pension of twenty-one 
pounds a year, Cugnot inust have perished with hunger, but for 
the compassionate benevolence of a lady of Brussels. With the 
kindness of her sex, she not only provided for the wants, but 
watched with tenderness over the personal comforts of the now 
feeble and helpless old man, until the well known Mercier suc- 
ceeded in drawing the attention of Napoleon to the miserable fate 
of his aged and ancient friend. 

Cugnot died at Paris in 1805, in his 80th year, in a state to him 
of comparative affluence, from the enjoyment of a valuable an- 
nuity from Napoleon. 



Eloquent Description 

But about seventy years since, every thread used in the manu- 
facture of cotton, wool, worsted, and flax, throughout the world, 
was spun singly by the fingers of the spinner, with the aid of that 
classical instrument, the domestic spinning wheel. In 1767, an 
eight handed spinster sprung from the genius of Hargreaves ; 



DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 4K1 

aud the jenny, with still increasing powers, made its way into com- 

men use in spite of all opposition. Two years afterwards the 
more wonderful invention of Wyatt, which claims a much earlier 
origin, but which had disappeared, hke a river that sinks into a 
subterraneous channel, now rose again under the fortunate star of 
Arkwright, claiming yet higher admiration, as founded on princi. 
pies of more extensive application. Five years later the happy 
thought of combining the principles of these two inventions, to 
produce a third, much more efficient than either, struck the mind 
of Crompton, who, by a perfectly original contrivance, effected 
the union. From twenty spindles this machine was brought, by 
more finished mechanism, to admit of a hundred spindles, and 
thus to exercise a Briarean power. Kelly relinquished the toilsome 
method of turning the machine by hand, and yoked to it the 
strength of a rapid river. Watt, with the subtler and more potent 
agency of steam, moved an iron arm that never slackens or tires, 
which whirls round two thousand spindles in a single machine. 
Finally, to consummate the wonder, Robei-ts dismisses the spin, 
ner, and leaves the machine to its own infallible guidance. So 
that at the present time several thousand spindles may be seen in 
a single room, revolving with inconceivable rapidity, with no hand 
to urge their progress, or to guide their operations — drawing out, 
twisting, and winding up as many thousand threads with unfailing 
precision, indefatigable patience and strength, — a scene as magi- 
cal to the eye that is not familiar to it, as the effects have been 
marvellous in augmenting wealth and population. 

If the thought should cross any mind, that, after all, the 
genius of man has been expended in the insignificant object of 
enabling men better to pick out, arrange, and twist together 
ihe fibres of a vegetable wool, — that it is for the performance of 
this minute operation that so many energies have been exhausted, — 
so much capital employed, — such stupendous structures reared, 
and so vast a population trained up — we reply : An object is not 
insignificant because the operation by which it is effected is 
minute : the first want of men in this life, after food, is clothing, 
and as this art enables them to supply it far more easily and 
cheaply than the old methods of manufacturing, and to bring 
clotlis of great elegance and durability within the use of the hum. 
ble classes, it is an art whose utiUty is only inferior to that of 
agriculture. It is almost impoGsible to over-estimate the impor. 
tance of these inventions. The Greeks would have elevated their 
authors among the gods ; nor will the enlightened judgment of 
modern times deny them the place among their fellow men, which 
is so undeniably their due. 



482 ANECDOTES, DESCRIPTIONS, ETC. 



>C 



A Watchmaker^ s Epitaph. 



The following professional epitaph is copied from a tombstone 
n Lidford Churchyard, Devon, England. 

Here lies in horizontal position 

The "outside case" of 

George Routleigh, Watch Maker, 

Whose abilities in that line were an honor 

To his Profession. 

Integrity was the " Main-spring," 

And Prudence the "Regulator" of all the 

Actions of his Life. 

Humane, generous, and liberal, 

His "Hand" never stopped 

Till he had relieved distress. 

So sincerely " regulated" were all his move- 

ments, 

That he never " went wrong," 

Except when "set agoing" 

By People 

Who did not know 

"His Key." 

Even then he was easily 

"Set right" again. 

He had the Art of disposing his "Time" 

So well. 

That his " hours" glided away 

In one continual round 

Of Pleasure and Delight, 

Till an unlucky Moment put a period to 

His Existence. 

He departed this Life, 

November 14th, 1802, 

Aged 57 : 

"Wound up" 

In hopes of being "taken in Hund" 

By his Maker, 

And of being 

Thoroughly "cleaned," — "repaired," — and "set 

agoing" 

In the World to come. 



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